The fastest-moving human-made object ever is about to come seven times closer to the sun than any spacecraft before it.

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A NASA spacecraft is about to make the closest approach to the sun.

A NASA spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun, plunging through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona.

The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter will join NASA’s Parker Solar Probe that was launched in 2018. “The two spacecraft will work together: As Parker samples solar particles up close, Solar Orbiter will capture imagery from farther away, contextualizing the observations. What is the Solar Orbiter? For this mission, Solar Orbiter will study the sun at a tilt in orbit letting it view the sun’s poles more directly. At its fastest, the Solar Orbiter will travel almost as fast as the sun’s rotation which will allow it to study how a single solar feature, such as a solar flare, evolves over time.