Article highlights:

On Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe will make its closest approach yet to the Sun. It will come within just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the solar surface, flying into the solar atmosphere for the first time.

I spoke with the chief of science at NASA, Nicky Fox, to understand why the probe is being tortured so. Before moving to NASA headquarters, Fox was the project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, and she explained that scientists really want to understand the origins of the solar wind.

This is the stream of charged particles that emanate from the Sun’s outermost layer, the corona. Scientists have been wondering about this particular mystery for longer than half a century, Fox explained.

“Quite simply, we want to find the birthplace of the solar wind,” she said.