Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA space probe launched in 2018 with the mission of making observations of the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h, or 0.064% the speed of light. The project was announced in the fiscal 2009 budget year. The cost of the project is US$1.5 billion. Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory designed and built the spacecraft, which was launched on 12 August 2018. It became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, honoring nonagenarian physicist Eugene Newman Parker, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago. A memory card containing the names of over 1.1 million people was mounted on a plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-gain antenna on 18 May 2018. The card also contains photos of Parker and a copy of his 1958 scientific paper predicting important aspects of solar physics.

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NASA's Parker Solar Probe makes 1st-of-its-kind observation within a coronal mass ejection

NASA's Parker Solar Probe smashes record for fastest human-made object

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NASA's Parker Solar Probe flies through major coronal mass ejection — and survives to tell the tale

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This Week @NASA: Webb Finds Black Hole in Early Universe, Mars Helicopter, Parker Solar Probe

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NASA's Parker Solar Probe starts summer with 16th swoop by the sun

Parker Solar Probe Makes a Surprising Discovery About the Source of the Geminid Meteor Shower

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Sheds Light on Unusual, Violent Origin of Geminid Meteor Shower

Parker Solar Probe Identifies Mechanism Driving Fast Solar Wind

Parker Solar Probe Flies Close Enough to the Sun to See the Source of the Fast Solar Wind

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Plunges Into Fast Solar Wind and Discovers Its Mysterious Source

Parker Solar Probe finds the source of 'fast' solar wind

NASA's sun-kissing Parker Solar Probe finds source of 'fast' solar wind

The Parker Solar Probe may have spotted the origin of high-speed solar winds

A powerful solar eruption on far side of the Sun impacted Earth — rare ejection clocked an unusually fast 2,127 kilometers (1,321 miles) per second, likely striking NASA’s Parker Solar Probe head-on

NASA's Parker Solar Probe makes its 15th close flyby of the sun this St. Patrick's Day