The 11th close flyby of the solar probe will allow it to understand how the sun works.
The plucky spacecraft, heavily shielded against the sun's radiation and extreme heat, will dip to within 5.3 million miles of the solar surface on Friday. Mercury is our closest planet to the sun.
The closest approach will be 10:36 a.m. The mission is overseen by the Applied Physics Laboratory at the University of Baltimore.
What is inside the sun? A star tour from the inside out.
At closest approach, the solar probe will be flying at a speed of over 350,000 mph.
The data will be sent home from within 3.83 million miles of the sun's surface by the end of the mission. Scientists will be able to make observations about the solar environment, particularly the atmosphere, if they get that close to the sun. The corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface, and it is not clear how this huge jump in temperatures happens.
The solar probe includes four different instrument suites to learn more about how the corona works and how it affects space weather.
Space weather can affect our planet in a number of ways, especially when the sun's magnetic field hits infrastructure such as power lines or satellites. Colorful displays can be seen high up in the atmosphere called the Auroras.
While doing solar science, he is also doing flybys of other planets to pick up speed and do some side science observations. The probe captured visible-light pictures of Venus. The probe will make a total of seven Venus flybys to use the planet's gravity to adjust course.
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