NASA-launched spacecraft enters Sun’s corona for first time in history

A spacecraft launched by NASA has done what was once thought impossible. On April 28, the Parker Solar Probe successfully entered the corona of the Sun — an extreme environment that’s roughly 2 million degrees Fahrenheit.A scientific paper describing the milestone was published in the Physical Review Letters.The historic moment was achieved thanks to a large collaboration of scientists and engineers, including members of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA) who built and monitor a key instrument on board the probe: the Solar Probe Cup. The cup collects particles from the Sun’s atmosphere that helped scientists verify that the spacecraft had indeed crossed into the corona.”The goal of this entire mission is to learn how the Sun works. We can accomplish this by flying into the solar atmosphere,” said Michael Stevens, an astrophysicist at the CfA who helps monitor the cup. “The only way to do that is for the spacecraft to cross the outer boundary, which …