The American Parker probe “touches” the Sun, or rather, temporarily dives (at perihelion) into the upper part of the solar atmosphere (i.e., the solar corona), samples particles, and measures its magnetic field for the first time. In reality, the transit will only be reported in December, as processing the data will take considerable time. On April 28, 2021, on its eighth flyby, Parker reached 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.
