NASA’s Parker Solar Probe heads for the Sun

Powered by a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, the launch took place just after 5.30am local time on Sunday morning. Over the next two months, the spacecraft will make its way towards Venus, where it will use the planet’s gravity to enter into a tight orbit around the Sun. Its first solar flyby in early November will see it pass within 15 million miles of the Sun’s surface. This will place the probe in the Sun’s corona where temperatures exceed 1 million K, 300 times hotter than the surface temperature.

Named after 91-year-old physicist Eugene Parker, the probe will study the nature of solar wind, which Parker first hypothesised in 1958. It is the first NASA mission to be named after a living person. Over the course of its seven-year journey, the spacecraft will pass the Sun a total of 24 times, providing a wealth of data on space weather, solar particles and how the Sun interacts with the Earth. Its final orbit will see it pass within 3.8 million miles of the surface, travelling at around 430,000 mph. This will make it the fastest moving object ever built by humanity.