First Spacecraft to Touch the Sun — Why We Put It There in First Place

Earlier this year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to touch the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 to study the Sun’s corona. There is much will still don’t know about this mysterious outer layer of the Sun, but NASA hopes to use the probe to aid us in discoveries about the Sun that could also be applied to observations about other stars as well.

Layers of the Sun