NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully made the closest-ever approach to the Sun, as per news agency Reuters, coming within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of its surface.
The probe endured scorching temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius) as it ventured into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona. It reached speeds of up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), making it the fastest human-made object.
After receiving an all-clear message, NASA confirmed on Friday that the probe is safe and functioning normally. The signal, known as a beacon tone, was received by the operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland late Thursday, indicating the spacecraft’s status.
The spacecraft, which was launched in 2018, is on a mission to study the Sun, with scientists hoping that the data collected by the probe will help them better understand why the sun’s outer atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface.
“This mission allows us to get closer to the Sun than ever before, helping scientists understand how the solar wind forms, why the Sun’s outer layer heats up to millions of degrees, and how energetic particles accelerate near light speed,” NASA explained.

The data might also contribute to answering what drives the solar wind — the supersonic stream of charged particles which constantly blast away from the sun.