The Parker Solar Probe Travels at About 430,000 mph

NASA built the Parker Solar Probe to go where no spacecraft had gone before. In the agency’s words, it is on a mission to touch the Sun. In 2021 it became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona, the Sun’s upper atmosphere, which NASA describes as the first time in history that a spacecraft had touched the Sun. Getting that close means going very fast. NASA states that at closest approach, the Parker Solar Probe hurtles around the Sun at approximately 430,000 miles per hour, or 700,000 kilometers per hour. At that point the spacecraft comes within about 3.9 million miles, or 6.2 million kilometers, of the Sun. NASA’s page also describes the solar wind sent out by the Sun, which whips along at speeds exceeding one million miles per hour.