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So, it's the morning of Christmas Eve.
In addition to continuing to make history as it travels around the sun, the Parker Solar Probe, which is operated by NASA, is getting ready to make yet another record-setting approach this week. The orbit of the spacecraft will bring it to a distance of approximately 3.8 million miles from the surface of the sun on December 24 at 6:53 AM Eastern Time, as predicted by the space agency. That will be the closest it has ever come near the sun, as well as the closest any other probe has ever come. Upon reaching this significant milestone, the Parker Solar Probe will have completed its 22nd orbit around our star. Additionally, it will have completed the first of three final closest flybys that are scheduled for its mission. It is anticipated that the spacecraft, which became operational in 2018, will perform a total of 24 orbits.
Nick Pinkine, the mission operations manager for the Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, made the following comment in a blog post for NASA: "No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory." Whenever the spacecraft completes its orbit around the sun, we are looking forward to receiving a message from it.
During the time that it will make its closest-ever pass, the Parker Solar Probe will be moving at a speed of approximately 430,000 miles per hour. On the 27th of December, when it will be enough removed from the sun to begin communications, it will send a ping to the team to verify that it is in good health.
