On Tuesday, NASA's Parker Solar Probe set a record as the fastest and closest man-made object ever made to the sun. It managed to approach up to 6.1 million kilometers from the sun's surface with temperatures reaching 980 degrees Celsius. At this distance, it almost touched the Sun's corona.
To approach the sun, the probe travels at a speed of up to 692,000 km/h. At this speed, the trip from Johor Bahru to Alor Setar can be done in just 3.89 seconds. It is the size of a car and has a heat shield that protects scientific equipment from melting due to high temperatures. This equipment is needed to measure the magnetic field and see how the Sun's corona affects the solar wind before it reaches Earth.
The probe was launched in 2018 and will make two more trips to the Sun on March 22 and June 19, 2025. All of this depends on whether the probe does not suffer damage last Tuesday. This will only be known tomorrow when communication links between the probe and Earth can be resumed.