Right now, as I type this, the Parker Space Probe is headed towards the Sun, making its closest approach. It is going the fastest any human-made object has ever gone and going closer to the Sun than any other human-made object has ever gotten. It will actually fly through the atmosphere of the sun.

I wonder if any man-made objects have ever crashed into the sun? Is the Sun’s gravity stronger than the solar wind blowing away from the Sun? I would think that the gravity is much stronger, and a miscalculation on an orbit could end up in that object falling into the sun, eventually.

At its closest approach, the probe is 3.8 million miles (6.2 million km) from our star’s surface.

This might not sound that close, but Nasa’s Nicola Fox puts it into perspective: “We are 93 million miles away from the Sun, so if I put the Sun and the Earth one metre apart, Parker Solar Probe is four centimetres from the Sun – so that’s close.” (Paragraph copied from the BBC)

Thats pretty cool, well, not cool, because the sun is very hot, but it’s neato-mosquito!

I have a half day at work today, days off tomorrow and the next day… Have a great holiday and enjoy your long weekendzzZz!