Have you ever wanted to high-five the Sun? The Parker Solar Probe was designed to do just that! Launching this summer, this spacecraft is designed to provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth. The primary science goals for the mission are to trace the flow of energy and understand the heating of the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind.

The amazing Parker Solar Probe will take 7 years to reach our Sun, 93 million miles away, making this spacecraft the fastest moving man-made object ever!  The Probe will reach its destination 3.8 million miles from the Sun’s surface placing the spacecraft inside the corona that is a whopping 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit! The heat shield facing the sun is 4.5 inches thick and made of a specially invented carbon-composite polymer. While Parker Solar Probe is orbiting the Sun, it experiences both hot and cold temperatures, so the engineers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab had to use materials that were able to withstand temperature fluctuations. At a cost of $1.5 billion dollars to create, the Parker Solar Probe will be the fastest-moving, hottest temperature-withstanding spacecraft ever, and the closest man-made object to the Sun.

Join Solar System Ambassador Marie Zahn for this exciting behind the scenes look at NASA's Parker Solar Probe and learn about the science and history of solar astronomy! After the presentation Marie will have a hands-on STEAM event making “sun art”. Marie is also an archaeologist and conservator currently working in the field of underwater archaeology.