The spacecraft passed just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the solar surface on Dec. 24, flying into the sun's outer atmosphere called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth's closest star.

NASA “tasted” the sun on Christmas Eve. The agency’s Parker Solar Probe made its closest-ever approach to the sun on Tuesday, swooping nearer to our star than any other human-made object in history. The spacecraft, which is about the size of a small ...

The mission’s close-up with the sun is the culmination of a dream that dates to the dawn of the space age, but progress was thwarted for decades by the complexity of the task. One particular obstacle is the immense energy required to propel a probe toward the sun.