NewsSpaceNASAs Parker Solar Probe survived its closest approach to the sunThe spacecraft will make two more close passes in 2025 NASAs Parker Solar Probe (illustrated here) is the closest artificial object to the sun.APL/NASABy Lisa Grossman1 hour agoNASAs Parker Solar Probe skimmed the sun on Christmas Eve and lived to tell the tale.The heat-hardened spacecraft made its closest solar flyby yet at 6:53 a.m. EST on December 24. It came within 6.1 million kilometers of the surface of the sun, beating its own 2023 record of 7.26 million kilometers.At the time of closest approach, the spacecraft was also the fastest object ever made by humans. It swung around the sun at about 692,000 kilometers per hour fast enough to travel from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in about a second.