NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has become the first spacecraft to “touch” the sun, after reaching its upper atmosphere known as the corona.  

The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the sun’s corona to sample particles and our star’s magnetic fields on December 14.

Launched in 2018, the spacecraft fulfilled NASA’s 60-year-old goal to reach the sun. 

“Parker Solar Probe ‘touching the sun’ is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat,” Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a press release.

“Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun’s evolution and it’s impacts on our solar system, but everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe,” he added.

The space exploration body said this first passage through the corona is one of many planned for the mission, as the solar probe continues to spiral closer to the sun, eventually reaching as close as 3.83 million miles from the surface.

The next solar flyby is scheduled for January 2022, and will likely bring the Solar Probe closer to the Sun. 

The Solar Probe will approach the sun 24 times over its lifetime, and by 2025, scientists expect that it will get closer than ever before, by about 4 million miles. 

The Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society.

The spacecraft was designed, built and managed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.