A NASA spacecraft will make another close pass of the sun

An artist's rendering of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP)

NEW YORK — A NASA spacecraft will make another close brush with the sun, the second of three planned encounters through the sizzling solar atmosphere.

The Parker Solar Probe made its record-breaking first pass within 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometres) of the scorching sun in December, flying closer than any object sent before.

Plans called for it to attempt that journey again on Saturday. Since the flyby happens out of communication range, the mission team won’t hear back from Parker until Tuesday afternoon.

Parker is the fastest spacecraft built by humans, and is once again set to hit 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h) at closest approach.

Launched in 2018 to get a close-up look at the sun, Parker has since flown straight through its crownlike outer atmosphere, or corona.

Scientists hope the data from Parker will help them better understand why the sun’s outer atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface and what drives the solar wind, the supersonic stream of charged particles constantly blasting away from the sun.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Adithi Ramakrishnan, The Associated Press