NEW YORK (AP) — A NASA spacecraft is about to make the closest approach to the sun. The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 to get a close-up look at the sun. On Tuesday, Parker will pass within a record-breaking 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface. That’s nearly seven times closer to the sun than previous spacecraft. Scientists won’t hear from Parker until a few days after the flyby. It’ll continue circling the sun at this distance until at least September. Scientists hope to better understand what drives the solar wind and why the corona is so much hotter than the sun’s surface.
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