Two days after a historic Christmas Eve sun flyby that flew closer to the star than any spacecraft in history — taking the car-sized spacecraft nearly a tenth as close to the sun than Mercury — the Parker Solar Probe phoned home for the first time since its solar encounter. The space probe sent a simple yet highly-anticipated beacon tone to Earth just before midnight late Thursday (Dec. 26).
Scientists on Earth were out of contact with the Parker Solar Probe since Dec. 20, when the spaceraft began its automated flyby of the sun, so the signal is a crucial confirmation that the spacecraft survived, and is in “good health and operating normally,” NASA shared in an update early Friday (Dec. 27).
Mission control at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland received the signal just before midnight ET on the night of Dec. 26, the statement read.
Parker Solar Probe has phoned home!After passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Dec. 24 — the closest solar flyby in history — we have received Parker Solar Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is safe.
More details: https://www.space.com/the-universe/sun/nasas-parker-solar-probe-phones-home-after-surviving-historic-close-sun-flyby
The Adelaide Fan Review 
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