Parker Solar Probe

People know relatively little about what is happening with our own Sun, especially on its surface, despite it appearing to be close to Earth. It appears to be cooler than the Sun's atmosphere, or corona, which is where the majority of the Sun's heat actually originates. It makes no sense; it's similar to feeling hotter as you get farther from a fire.

That's only one of the many unknowns about the Sun, and until recently, it was thought impossible and futuristic to reach its corona to collect measurements. On April 28, 2021, NASA's Parker probe broke through that barrier when it made contact with the Sun's atmosphere for the first time. It was Parker's seventh flyby, and it significantly advanced our understanding of how solar winds are produced. It is anticipated that the probe will make another close pass sometime in 2025 while it is still in orbit around the Sun.