The NASA spacecraft reaches the sun's crown protected by a state-of-the-art thermal shield

The NASA heat shield is the key to making the probe capable of withstanding the indescribable heat of the Sun. is " sharp. " officially called Thermal Protection System (TPS), it was installed on the probe in June.

TPS weighs about 160 pounds and has a foam core made up of 97% air. The foam lies between two super-heated carbon-carbon composite panels, sprayed on the sun-facing side with a specially formulated white coating.

The shield is supposed to make a probe capable of surviving temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius). By taking most of the heat from the front, the shield would keep the spacecraft and its instruments cool at a speed of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius).

The probe, which will be launched in August, is expected to reach 4 miles from the Sun's surface after traveling with speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour at its closest approach to the United States. star.

The star corona of our system begins at about 2,300 km above the solar surface and has no official upper limit.

The crown is visible to the naked eye only during a total solar eclipse or with the use of a coronagraph. NASA says it's planning to get closer to the Sun for 60 years.

The Parker Solar Probe was created by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which will also operate the spacecraft during its planned mission. It is part of NASA's Living with a Star (LWS) program, which explores aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society.