![NASA’s Probe Took a Video as It “Touched the Sun” and Wow](https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2021/12/nasas-probe-took-a-video-as-it-touched-the-sun-and-wow.jpg)
The agency confirmed that the first craft to touch the Sun was NASA's Parker Solar Probe.
The probe made its way through the star's upper atmosphere, taking important readings of its surroundings.
It took a lot of time to capture tons of images during its amazing stunt, which scientists stitched together for an incredible video with the Milky Way peeking out behind a stream of highly charged particles.
The eye of the storm
It must have been quite the experience for the Solar Probe as it made its way through a feature of the Sun's atmosphere called a pseudostreamer, which are huge ribbon-like structures that are visible during solar eclipses.
NASA said that passing through the pseudostreamer was like flying into the eye of a storm. The conditions inside the pseudostreamer were quiet and the number of particles slowed, which was a dramatic change from the busy barrage of particles the spacecraft usually encounters in the solar wind.
Dramatic magnetic explosions occur in the Sun's atmosphere, which causes zig-zag-like magnetic structures called switchbacks. They were found to be a common feature of the solar wind, and not as rare as had been thought.
Nour Raouafi, a scientist with the Parker Solar Probe project, said in the statement that they see evidence of being in the corona from magnetic field data, solar wind data, and white-light images.
The probe was screaming through the Sun's atmosphere at over 142 kilometers per second. What it discovered could change our understanding of the Sun forever.
The probe was traveling too fast.
The probe officially touched the Sun.
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