NASA reports that the American Parker probe has “touched” the Sun, or rather, it temporarily dived (at perihelion) into the upper part of the solar atmosphere (i.e., the solar corona), sampled particles, and measured its magnetic field for the first time. The passage actually occurred a few months earlier, but processing the data took considerable time. On April 28, 2021, on its eighth flyby, Parker came within 19 solar radii of the surface of our star. Parker also continues to shatter all speed records (now only its own), and will reach 690,000 km/h (0.064%) in 2025, at 9.86 solar radii from the Sun.
