Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe Breaks two Incredible Records
“File:Animation of Parker Solar Probe trajectory.gif” by Phoenix7777 is licensed with CC BY-SA 4.0
NASA’s Parker solar probe launched in August of 2018, and is currently in a slingshot orbit between the sun and Venus. The image to the right of the story shows the trajectory map of the Parker solar probe. Since the probe is using the gravity of Venus and the Sun to it’s advantage, it is going at crazy speeds. On April 29, when Parker was at it’s closest to the sun, which is known as the perihelion, the solar probe was going so fast that it could circle the Earth 13 times in a single hour!
The records Parker broke were for speed and closeness to the Sun, and happened to previously be held by Parker as well. The previous records were set back in February 2020, and were:
- The fastest human-made object, at 244,255 mph
- The closest spacecraft to the sun, 11.6 million miles
The new records Parker set on April 29, 2021 were:
- The fastest human-made object, at 330,000 mph
- The closest spacecraft to the sun, 6.5 million miles
These records are incredible, but there are expected to be broken in Parker’s next perihelion, which should be on November 21.
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