Humans Touched the Sun for the First Time Using a Spacecraft

The Sun is the literal star of the show in our solar system, but we’re still trying to figure out our celestial disco ball. Debates about the Sun were first posed by ancient Greek philosophers. Thousands of years later, the combined work of people like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton helped determine that planets orbit the.

Many questions about our Sun remain, like the nature of the energized wind that streams away from it across the solar system, or why the fiery orb’s outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the surface. The spacecraft has already uncovered surprising things.

The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the Sun corona, or upper atmosphere, to sample particles and our star’s magnetic fields. This NASA goal was 60 years in the making. The spacecraft will continue to draw closer to the Sun, especially during an anticipated peak in solar activity; even more surprises are sure to be in store as the mission goes on.

This critter’s got legs and knows how to use them. It has the most legs of any living animal. It’s a true millipede with 1,306 legs. Mille means “thousand” in Latin, but known millipede species topped out at 750 legs until this discovery. Scientists found the real McCoy living deep underground in Western Australia. It’s only 3.7 inches long, but it has 330 body segments.