(CNN) Wearing a nearly 5-inch coat of carbon-composite solar shields, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that begins in the summer of 2018. 
 
 It's not a journey that any human can make, so NASA is sending a roughly 10-foot-high probe on the historic mission that will put it closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever reached before. 
 
 The probe will have to withstand heat and radiation never before experienced by any spacecraft, but the specially designed mission will also address questions that couldn't be answered before. Understanding the sun in greater detail can also shed light on Earth and its place in the solar system, researchers said. 
 
 This is NASA's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, called the corona. 
 
 On Wednesday, the craft -- initially called the Solar Probe Plus -- was renamed the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker. 
 
 "This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "It's a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day. I'm very excited to be personally involved honoring a great man and his unprecedented legacy." 
 
 Parker published research predicting the existence of solar wind in 1958, when he was a young professor at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi institute. At the time, astronomers believed that the space between planets was a vacuum. Parker's first paper was rejected, but it was saved by a colleague, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an astrophysicist who would be awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics. 
 
 Less than two years after Parker's paper was published, his theory of solar wind was confirmed by satellite observations. His work revolutionized our understanding of the sun and interplanetary space. 
 
 Parker is now the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. Zurbuchen and Nicola Fox, the mission project scientist for Parker Solar Probe, also presented Parker with the first scale model of the probe and NASA's distinguished public service medal. 
 
 "I'm greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip with photos of Parker and his revolutionary paper, as well as a plate carrying whatever inscription Parker wishes to provide -- his message to the sun. 
 
 The probe will eventually orbit within 3.7 million miles of the sun's surface. The observations and data could provide insight about the physics of stars, change what we know about the mysterious corona, increase understanding of solar wind and help improve forecasting of major space weather events. Those events can impact satellites and astronauts as well as the Earth -- including the power grid and radiation exposure on airline flights, NASA said. 
 
 The mission's objectives include "tracing the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the sun's corona and solar wind, determining the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind and explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles." 
 
 "We've been inside the orbit of Mercury and done amazing things, but until you go and touch the sun, you can't answer these questions," Fox said. "Why has it taken us 60 years? The materials didn't exist to allow us to do it. We had to make a heat shield, and we love it. Something that can withstand the extreme hot and cold temperature shifts of its 24 orbits is revolutionary." 
 
 Solar wind is the flow of charged gases from the sun that is present in most of the solar system. That wind screams past Earth at a million miles per hour, and disturbances of the solar wind cause disruptive space weather that impacts our planet. 
 
 Space weather may not sound like something that concerns Earth, but surveys by the National Academy of Sciences have estimated that a solar event without warning could cause $2 trillion in damage in the United States and leave parts of the country without power for a year. 
 
 In order to reach an orbit around the sun, the Parker Solar Probe will take seven flybys of Venus that will essentially give the probe a gravity assist, shrinking its orbit around the sun over the course of nearly seven years. 
 
 The probe will eventually be closer to the sun than Mercury. It will be close enough to watch solar wind whip up from subsonic to supersonic. 
 
 When closest to the sun, the probe's 4½-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shields will have to withstand temperatures close to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Due to its design, the inside of the spacecraft and its instruments will remain at a comfortable room temperature. 
 
 The probe will reach a speed of 450,000 mph around the sun. On Earth, this speed would enable someone to get from Philadelphia to Washington in one second, the agency said. The mission will also pass through the origin of the solar particles with the highest energy. 
 
 The mission is scheduled to end in June 2025. 
 
 "The solar probe is going to a region of space that has never been explored before," Parker said. "It's very exciting that we'll finally get a look. One would like to have some more detailed measurements of what's going on in the solar wind. I'm sure that there will be some surprises. There always are." ||||| Don't call it Solar Probe Plus anymore. 
 
 NASA's upcoming sun-studying mission, which will come much closer to Earth's star than any spacecraft in history, has been renamed the Parker Solar Probe, agency officials announced today (May 31). 
 
 The new moniker honors pioneering University of Chicago astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who predicted the existence of the solar wind — the stream of charged particles flowing constantly from the sun — back in 1958. [Solar Quiz: How Well Do You Know Our Sun?] 
 
 NASA has named about 20 space missions after people; the Hubble Space Telescope is perhaps the most famous example. But the 89-year-old Parker is the first researcher to be celebrated in this manner while still alive, agency officials said. 
 
 "I'm certainly greatly honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission," Parker said during a press conference at the University of Chicago today. 
 
 An artist's illustration of NASA's Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, formerly known as Solar Probe Plus, studying the sun. The mission is scheduled to launch in July 2018. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory 
 
 The ambitious $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission is scheduled to soar to solar orbit atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 31, 2018. 
 
 Over the course of the next seven years, the spacecraft will perform 24 close flybys of the sun, some of which will bring it within just 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface. That's well inside the orbit of Mercury, and seven times closer than any other probe has ever gotten to the sun, NASA officials said. 
 
 The environment in this region is extreme, to say the least: During its closest encounters, the 10-foot-long (3 meters) Parker Solar Probe is expected to experience temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) and solar radiation intensities 475 times greater than we're used to on Earth. 
 
 Mission controllers will therefore retract the Parker Solar Probe's solar arrays as it approaches the sun and extend them as the spacecraft retreats, to keep panel power levels and temperatures from fluctuating too much. And the probe will be outfitted with a 7.5-foot-wide (2.3 m), 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) heat shield made of advanced carbon-composite material, which will allow its four science instruments to operate at about room temperature, NASA officials said. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will perform a number of tasks with this science gear, such as measure the sun's electric and magnetic fields, photograph solar structure and study the solar wind. 
 
 If all goes according to plan, the Parker Solar Probe's observations will help mission scientists solve two long-standing puzzles: How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, so much hotter than the solar surface (3 million degrees F, or 1.7 million degrees C, compared with 10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C)? 
 
 This latter situation is akin to water flowing uphill, said Parker Solar Probe mission scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland: "It shouldn't happen." 
 
 These two big questions can be answered only by getting up-close observations of the sun, Fox added. And the answers are not just of academic interest. 
 
 "One recent study by the National Academy of Sciences estimated that, without advance warning, a huge solar event could cause $2 trillion in damage in the U.S. alone, and the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. could be without power for a year," researchers at APL, which manages the mission for NASA, wrote in an online description. 
 
 "In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, we will send [the Parker Solar Probe] to touch the sun," they added. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will carry a chip loaded with photographs of Eugene Parker and a copy of his seminal 1958 solar-wind paper, Fox said. NASA has also invited Parker to come up with an inscription for a plate that will be installed on the spacecraft, she added. 
 
 Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. ||||| A future solar exploring spacecraft will change the understanding of the sun by aiming straight for our solar system's star. NASA revealed new details Wednesday about the first mission to visit the sun. 
 
 During a news conference at the University of Chicago, NASA officials announced that the spacecraft would be called the Parker Solar Probe in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker, credited with discovering solar wind. 
 
 On track for a summer 2018 launch, the spacecraft will rely on incredible feats of engineering that will allow the probe to touch the sun. A 4.5-inch thick carbon-composite solar shield will protect the probe from temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit while keeping the science instruments at room temperature. 
 
 Join us at 11am ET to learn more about humanity's first mission to visit a star: https://t.co/ECEIXnuSer pic.twitter.com/7R4GZOm5w0 — NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) May 31, 2017 
 
 The spacecraft will be equipped with a thermal protection system and a solar array cooling system to protect it from the blazing sun. 
 
 
 
 The arrays, or panels, will retract and extend as the spacecraft moves around the sun, keeping it at a safe temperature and also powering it with the sun. 
 
 
 
 Parker Solar Probe's science objects include tracing the energy behind solar wind, understand the heating of the solar corona and to determine what accelerates the solar wind, according to the mission website. 
 
 “It’s a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star, including finding out why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than its surface,” said mission scientist Nicola Fox, with Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. 
 
 The findings will help answer questions about how stars work and improve space weather forecasting. 
 
 
 
 After launch, Parker Solar Probe will make a Venus flyby before reaching its first perihelion or the closest point to the sun. The spacecraft will then repeat that flyby of the perihelion routine 23 more times over its lifetime until 2025. 
 
 
 
 On the final orbits Parker Solar Probe will fly within 9 solar radii, or nine times the radius of the sun, of the sun’s “surface,” seven times closer than any other spacecraft has been to the sun before. 
 
 
 
 The 20-day launch window opens July 31, 2018. After testing the assembly, the spacecraft will arrive at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to prep for launch. 
 
 It's the first time a spacecraft will be named for a living person. 
 
 “It’s a testament to the importance of his body of work, founding a new field of science that also inspired my own research and many important science questions NASA continues to study and further understand every day," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. 
 
 Parker, who serves as the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago, also attended NASA’s announcement Wednesday. 
 
 He said he is looking forward to seeing the science form the mission going to a region of space never before explored. 
 
 “I’m sure that there will be some surprises,” Parker said. “There always are.” 
 
 Copyright 2017 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved. ||||| Your name could soon zoom through the sun's superheated outer atmosphere, just like William Shatner's. 
 
 The "Star Trek" actor has signed up to put his name on a microchip that will fly aboard NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which will launch on a historic sun-studying mission this summer. And he wants you to book a seat as well. 
 
 "The first-ever spacecraft to the sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe, will launch this year on a course to orbit through the heat of our star's corona, where temperatures are greater than 1 million degrees," Shatner said in a new NASA video about this public-outreach effort. "The spacecraft will also carry my name to the sun, and your name, and the names of everyone who wants to join this voyage of extreme exploration." [NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission in Pictures] 
 
 You can get your name on that chip for free by visiting the NASA "Hot Ticket" site through April 27. 
 
 The $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 31. If all goes according to plan, the spacecraft will perform 24 close flybys of the sun over the next seven years, at times getting within just 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface. That's seven times closer than any other probe has ever gotten to the sun, NASA officials said. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe is therefore outfitted with a 4.5-inch-thick (11.4 centimeters) carbon-composite shield, which will protect the spacecraft from radiation levels 475 times greater than those we experience here on Earth and temperatures that reach 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius). The spacecraft's onboard instruments should be able to operate at room temperature despite these extreme external conditions, NASA officials said. 
 
 Those instruments will make a variety of measurements, helping to characterize the sun's structure, magnetic and electric fields and the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from our star. Mission scientists hope these observations help solve two longstanding solar mysteries: how the solar wind is accelerated, and why the sun's corona, or outer atmosphere, is so much hotter than the surface (which reaches a mere 10,000 degrees F, or 5,500 degrees C.) 
 
 You can send your name to the sun, via a microchip installed on NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission. Submissions will be accepted until April 27, 2018. Credit: NASA 
 
 "Parker Solar Probe is, quite literally, the fastest, hottest — and, to me, coolest — mission under the sun," project scientist Nicola Fox, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Baltimore, said in a statement. "This incredible spacecraft is going to reveal so much about our star and how it works that we've not been able to understand." 
 
 And about that speed: During its closest approaches to the sun, the spacecraft will top out at about 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h). The current speed record is held by NASA's Juno probe, which was accelerated to about 165,000 mph (265,000 km/h) by Jupiter's powerful gravity upon its approach to the gas giant in the summer of 2016. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe was originally called Solar Probe Plus. In May 2017, NASA announced the name change, which honors pioneering astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who predicted the solar wind's existence in 1958. In addition to the microchip with all the names, the Parker Solar Probe will also carry a copy of Parker's 1958 paper, along with photos of the scientist, mission team members have said. 
 
 Shatner's name really gets around the solar system. The actor also helped publicize a similar public-outreach effort for NASA's Mars InSight mission, which will launch toward the Red Planet this May. Shatner's name is among 2.4 million that will travel on a chip aboard InSight. 
 
 Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com. ||||| Renamed the Parker Solar Probe to honour solar astrophysicist who predicted high speed solar wind, the spacecraft will attempt to get close to sun’s surface 
 
 Nasa has announced its hotly anticipated mission to send a spacecraft into the sun’s outer atmosphere has a new name. 
 
 Formerly known as the Solar Probe Plus mission, the endeavour will now be known as the Parker Solar Probe, honouring the American solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker who predicted a high speed solar wind – the stream of charged particles, or plasma, that flows from the sun out into space. 
 
 Parker, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who will turn 90 on 10 June, put forward his theory in 1958. It was initially met with scepticism. “People just thought it was crazy,” said Justin Kasper, a space scientist at the University of Michigan and lead investigator for one of the probe’s scientific research projects. But later observations proved the prediction correct. 
 
 Esa’s Solar Orbiter mission passes crucial milestone Read more 
 
 Parker’s work delved into a longstanding puzzle. While the temperature at the centre of the sun is about 15mC, further out things get complicated. “One of the mysterious things about our sun’s atmosphere is the [sun’s] surface, which is glowing visible in the yellow and white, is 6,000C, but the corona – its atmosphere – is at 1m-5mC,” said Kasper. 
 
 The incredible temperatures in the corona, Parker realised, would create an unstable situation, meaning the sun’s atmosphere is no longer pulled back by the star’s gravity but instead escapes into space. 
 
 “Parker said that by a couple of solar radii, the atmosphere would hit the speed of sound, it would break the sound barrier in the sun’s atmosphere, [and] by 10 solar radii it would be going supersonic,” said Kasper. “We enter the space age, and one of the first things we discover is this supersonic solar wind.” 
 
 With the probe set to investigate the origins of solar wind, including the mysterious heating of the sun’s atmosphere and how the solar wind accelerates to astonishing speeds of up to 400 miles per second, the renaming of the mission is a fitting tribute to Parker. 
 
 It is not the first time that Nasa has renamed a mission to honour a scientist. In 2008 the space agency renamed the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope in honour of the late Italian physicist Enrico Fermi. In 2012, the space agency announced that it was renaming the Radiation Belt Storm Probes in honour of the late James Van Allen. Van Allen discovered two radiation belts composed of charged particles, known as the Van Allen belts, that encircle the Earth. 
 
 “Nasa has never named a spacecraft after a researcher during their lifetime. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we are about to make history,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the Nasa science mission directorate, announcing the new name of the mission at the University of Chicago. 
 
 Speaking at the press conference Nicola Fox, mission project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, added that a chip would be placed on board the spacecraft carrying pictures of Parker and his scientific papers, as well as a plate with an inscription of his choice. Parker was then presented with a model of the probe. 
 
 In addition, Parker was awarded with the Nasa Distinguished Public Service Medal – the highest award from the space agency for non-governmental personnel – in honour of his lifetime’s work. 
 
 Dressed in a black suit and tie, Parker said that he was privileged that the mission had been named after him. “I am greatly honoured to be associated with such a heroic scientific space mission,” he said, explaining that designing a spacecraft to withstand temperatures so close to the sun is a considerable feat. 
 
 
 
 Realising a dream from the beginning of the space age 
 
 The size of a car, shaped like the business end of a torch, and built to withstand temperatures of more than 1400C (2552F), the newly named Parker Solar Probe is set to be launched next summer in an unprecedented attempted to get up close to our star, coming within 4m miles of its surface. 
 
 “It is just extraordinary - it is something that people have wanted to do from the beginning of the space age,” said Tim Horbury, professor of physics at Imperial College London. 
 
 Scientist say the mission, costing in the region of $1.5bn, could radically change our understanding of the sun, while offering vital insights into space weather - phenomena including coronal mass ejections that trigger geomagnetic storms that not only damage satellite systems but can knock out power grids on Earth. 
 
 “It is just a hugely important and scientifically fascinating mission,” said David McComas, vice president of the Princeton University plasma physics laboratory and principal investigator for the probe’s “Integrated Science Investigation of the sun”, research that will probe how electrons, protons and other charged particles are accelerated in the sun’s atmosphere. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest An artist’s impression of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft approaching the sun. Photograph: Johns Hopkins University Applied/PA 
 
 “It is far closer than anything ever built by humanity has ever gotten to the sun,” McComas said. 
 
 Instruments for a number of scientific investigations on board the spacecraft will probe myriad solar phenomena from the electric and magnetic properties of the sun’s plasma to counting and catching the components of solar wind. The latter, a project dubbed the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation, is led by Kasper. 
 
 “The sun is obviously very hot – its outer atmosphere is at hundreds of thousands of degrees Kelvin, and as a result it blows a bubble into interstellar space,” said Horbury. “We live in that bubble, we live in the heliosphere, and it is the solar wind that blows that bubble.” 
 
 The goal of the probe is to understand how the sun makes the solar wind, and explore the physical process that are occurring. A member of the science team for the probe’s Fields instrument, Horbury plans to study turbulence within the solar wind. 
 
 “When we first started [looking at the sun from space] that we realised the sun is not a boring yellow sphere, it is an incredibly dynamic, active plasma object,” he said. 
 
 But the challenges have been immense, Horbury adds, describing the mission as “just on the edge of achievable”. The major difficulty was designing the probe to prevent it being toasted by the sun’s immense heat - as part of the solution the probe boasts a large heat-shield that is actively cooled by radiator systems. 
 
 “There is a tiny spacecraft cowering behind this big heat shield,” Horbury said. “It is just extreme - everything is different when you are that close in [to the sun].” 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe will travel far closer to the sun that any previous probe. While 4m miles might sound like a sizeable distance from the sun, it corresponds to under 10 solar radii. “[The Earth is] about 250-odd solar radii away, so it is really close,” said Horbury. 
 
 The distance is crucial. Solar wind accelerates away from the sun, but it is about 10 solar radii that it effectively goes supersonic. “The point about the probe is it is going to get within that critical point,” said Hornbury. 
 
 McComas’s part of the mission will explore in detail how certain particles, ejected by events including coronal mass ejections but not part of the solar wind, end up with very high energies, travelling at speeds of up to 80% of the speed of light. “They are really interesting and important particles because, for example, they can cause radiation damage in space to spacecraft, they can be a threat to astronauts in space,” he said. 
 
 
 
 The mission is not only expected to offer unprecedented insights into the physics of the sun – an endeavour that will shed light on processes happening in stars across the universe – but will also yield vital information about space weather, that could help scientists to predict major events before they affect Earth. 
 
 The stakes for the mission are high, admits Horbury. 
 
 “The thing about space is everyone has done the easy stuff – we are only left with the difficult things, so by definition this is risky,” he said. “They are really pushing the limits of what is possible. But that is the way you make progress.” ||||| NASA is naming its upcoming mission to “touch the Sun” after Eugene Parker, a prominent astrophysicist who discovered the existence of solar wind — the charged particles that are constantly streaming from our star. The mission, originally named Solar Probe Plus, will now be called the Parker Solar Probe. It’s the first time NASA has named one of its missions after a scientist who is still alive. Parker discovered solar wind in the 1950s and is about to celebrate his 90th birthday. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe is NASA’s plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before. The probe, which is being developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is supposed to launch on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket in either July or August of 2018 and then spend seven years getting into closer and closer orbits around the Sun. To do this, the vehicle will do seven flybys of Venus, which will eventually bring the spacecraft within 3.7 million miles of the Sun. That’s about eight times closer than any other spacecraft has been before, according to NASA. 
 
 NASA’s plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before 
 
 From this distance, the Parker Solar Probe will analyze the Sun’s atmosphere, mainly to figure out the mechanics of the solar wind that Parker discovered. The Sun is constantly spewing out highly charged particles in the form of plasma — what is known as solar wind. And it’s all thanks to the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or the corona. Even though the corona extends millions of miles out into space, it is unbelievably hot — so hot that it heats up particles to such extreme temperatures that they break free of the Sun’s gravity and accelerate outward in all directions. This solar wind, which carries part of the Sun’s magnetic field, travels all the way to Earth and slams into our planet’s own magnetic field. 
 
 Fortunately, our field acts like a protective barrier, so usually this process is pretty harmless for us. But every now and then, the Sun burps out an extra helping of charged particles known as a coronal mass ejection. When this mess of particles reaches Earth, it can disturb our magnetic field enough to cause geomagnetic storms. These storms aren’t too serious, but they can mess with our power grids and communications systems, as well as damage our satellites. 
 
 We know the basics of how solar wind works, but the processes behind these particle bursts are still not totally understood. That’s what the Parker Solar Probe is going to help us figure out. The spacecraft is designed to “trace the flow of energy” that’s responsible for heating up the corona and accelerating the solar wind. And the more we know about how these processes work, the better we can get at predicting when they will happen. 
 
 Normally, NASA waits to rename its missions after launch, but the space agency decided to break protocol this time since Parker’s work has been so instrumental for the spacecraft’s mission. His discovery of solar wind has essentially changed our understanding of stars and how they interact with the space around them. Apart from getting the mission named after him, a chip with pictures of Parker will also be included on the vehicles, as well as a copy of his original paper on solar wind. ||||| Image: NASA 
 
 NASA’s historic mission to “touch the Sun” just reached two important milestones: It now holds the record for the closest approach to the Sun by a human-built object—and also the record for the fastest spacecraft ever sent into space. 
 
 
 
 Launched on August 12, 2018, the Parker Solar Probe is now entering into the first stages of its mission. 
 
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 At 1:04 pm ET on October 29, the spacecraft got closer than 42.7 million kilometers (26.55 million miles) from the Sun’s surface—a new record for a human-built object. The old record was held by the German-American Helios 2 spacecraft, which achieved the feat in April 1976. From here on in, every inch closer that the probe gets to the Sun will be a new distance record, with a closest approach of 6.16 million kilometers (3.83 million miles) expected in 2024. 
 
 “It’s been just 78 days since Parker Solar Probe launched, and we’ve now come closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history,” Parker Solar Probe Project Manager Andy Driesman said in a NASA statement. “It’s a proud moment for the team, though we remain focused on our first solar encounter.” 
 
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 Less than 10 hours later, the probe set yet another record. Attaining and then surpassing a speed of 246,960 kilometers per hour (153,454 miles per hour), the Parker probe became the fastest-ever human-built object relative to the Sun. The previous record was also held by the Helios 2 mission. By 2024, the spacecraft is expected reach speeds in excess of 692,000 kilometers per hour (430,000 miles per hour, or 0.064 percent the speed of light). 
 
 To calculate the speed and distance of the Parker Solar Probe, the space agency utilizes its Deep Space Network, or DSN. NASA explains: 
 
 The DSN sends a signal to the spacecraft, which then retransmits it back to the DSN, allowing the team to determine the spacecraft’s speed and position based on the timing and characteristics of the signal. Parker Solar Probe’s speed and position were calculated using DSN measurements made on Oct. 24, and the team used that information along with known orbital forces to calculate the spacecraft’s speed and position from that point on. 
 
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 At its current distance to the Sun, the probe requires 150 days to make a complete orbit. It will achieve the first of 26 perihelion events (the point closest to the Sun) on November 6, 2018. Over the next six years, the probe’s orbital length will gradually shrink, allowing it to get closer to the Sun. As it gets nearer to the star’s surface, the probe will face formidable heat and radiation, which it will fend off with a maneuverable shield always pointed toward the flaming ball of fire at the center of our Solar System. 
 
 The Parker Solar Probe’s onboard sensors will take measurements, providing unprecedented new data for scientists. By learning more about the Sun, we will have a better understanding of how it affects Earth and other planets, and possibly improve our space weather forecasting. Knowing how and when the Sun produces massive solar storms, for example, could go a long way in reducing damage on Earth. 
 
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 Correction: An earlier version of this post had an incorrect conversion of mph to speed of light. 
 
 [NASA, NASA]
– NASA is going to the sun. More specifically, it's launching an unmanned probe next year that will travel closer to the star than any spacecraft has done previously. "It's a spacecraft loaded with technological breakthroughs that will solve many of the largest mysteries about our star," says Nicola Fox of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. In less scientific terms, per the Telegraph: "We will finally touch the sun." The nuts and bolts: The mission: The 10-foot probe will launch in July or August of 2018 and eventually get to within 3.7 million miles of the sun, about seven times closer than any previous spacecraft. Eventually, it will be whizzing around the sun at a speed of 450,000 miles per hour, reports CNN. The mission ends in 2025. Corona: The probe will actually fly into the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere, called the corona, per a mission overview at NASA that touts "humanity's first visit to a star." The heat: The probe will rely on a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite solar shield to help it withstand temperatures up to 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, reports Orlando's WKMG. Instruments will remain at room temperature. The name: The probe's name has been changed to the Parker Solar Probe to honor astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who's credited with discovering solar wind. Parker, who turns 90 in June, is a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, and the Guardian recounts that the theory he put forward in 1958 about a stream of charged particles flowing from the sun was once thought to be "crazy." A first: This is the first time NASA has named a mission after a living scientist. "I'm certainly greatly honored," said the man himself, per Space.com. Two puzzles: Scientists hope to better understand two things in particular: "How is the solar wind accelerated, and why is the ... corona so much hotter than the solar surface?" (It's 3 million degrees Fahrenheit vs. 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.) Why it matters: Generally, solar storms are relatively harmless when they reach Earth, but these particle bursts occasionally wreak havoc on satellites and here on Earth, and they have the potential to be devastating. "The more we know about how these processes work, the better we can get at predicting when they will happen," writes Loren Grush at the Verge.