AGU24 Roundtable: Parker Solar Probe preps for its closest approach to the Sun

This media roundtable was recorded at AGU's 2024 Annual meeting on 10 December, 2024.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission zips to its crescendo on Dec. 24, 2024, with the first of three closest passes of the Sun. The spacecraft will be just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface, blazing by at 430,000 mph (690,000 kph) — breaking its own records for speed and distance, and achieving humanity’s closest-ever approach to a star.

Members of the Parker Solar Probe team from NASA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) – which built and operates the spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA – will preview this monumental exploration achievement. They’ll describe how Parker continues to thrive in one of the most extreme environments in the solar system while helping scientists answer the toughest questions about the Sun, like how the solar wind is generated at its source; understanding coronal heating and solar wind; and the birth and structure of coronal mass ejections.

The final flybys will fill in some of the last missing pieces of these solar puzzles — while almost certainly sparking questions for future missions to answer and mysteries for the next generations of scientists to solve.

Panelists:
Nour Rawafi, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Betsy Congdon, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory
Nicholeen Viall, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Also speaking:
(standing) Michael Stevens, Harvard
(seated) Eric Christian, NASA/GSFC
(standing) Philip Hess, US NRL
(standing) Marc Pulupa, UC Berkeley