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NASA's historic Parker Solar Probe -- enroute to the Sun to unravel its mysteries -- has become the closest spacecraft to it. The spacecraft passed the current record of 26.55 million miles from the Sun's surface on October 29, as calculated by the Parker Solar Probe team, NASA said in a statement on Monday. The previous record for closest solar approach was set by the German-American Helios 2 spacecraft in April 1976. As the Parker Solar Probe mission progresses, the spacecraft will repeatedly break its own records, with a final close approach of 3.83 million miles from the Sun's surface expected in 2024. "It's been just 78 days since Parker Solar Probe launched, and we've now come closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history," said Project Manager Andy Driesman from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. Read Complete Article Business Standard

The Parker Solar Probe carries a lineup of instruments to study the Sun both remotely and in situ, or directly Current Affairs News : NASA 's Parker Solar Probe , mankind's first mission to 'touch' the Sun, has been moved to its launch pad and is on schedule take off next week, the US space agencies said. The car-sized spacecraft will travel directly into the Sun's atmosphere, about four million miles from its surface - and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before, thanks to its innovative Thermal Protection System. The mission, targeted to launch on August 11, will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona. It will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionise our understanding of the corona and how processes there ultimately affect near-Earth space. The probe was moved on July 30 to Space the Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Ai...