Parker Sun Probe: Fastest Man-Made Object Brushes the Sun

I just saw a recent YouTube video, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Touches the Sun for the First Time. It describes the mission and early findings of a probe that was launched in 2018, and now is brushing through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampling particles and magnetic fields there. Solar outbursts can impact our earthly electronics, so it is helpful to better understand how these outbursts form. In its closest approaches to the sun, the Parker probe will attain the highest velocity of any man-made object, some  430,000 miles per hour . See here for some construction details that allow it to survive and function so close to the sun.

The video is only 5 minutes, fast-paced, and with good graphics. I won’t summarize it further, beyond posting a few screenshots below. If you like science I think you will enjoy this video.