Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe survives closest-ever approach to Sun

So why go to all this effort to “touch” the Sun?

Scientists hope that as the spacecraft passed through our star’s outer atmosphere – its corona – it will have collected data that will solve a long-standing mystery.

“The corona is really, really hot, and we have no idea why,” explained Dr Jenifer Millard, an astronomer at Fifth Star Labs in Wales.

“The surface of the Sun is about 6,000C or so, but the corona, this tenuous outer atmosphere that you can see during solar eclipses, reaches millions of degrees – and that is further away from the Sun. So how is that atmosphere getting hotter?”

The mission should also help scientists better understand solar wind – the constant stream of charged particles bursting out from the corona.

When these particles interact with the Earth’s magnetic field the sky lights up with dazzling auroras.

But this so-called space weather can cause problems too, knocking out power grids, electronics and communication systems.

“Understanding the Sun, its activity, space weather, the solar wind, is so important to our everyday lives on Earth,” said Dr Millard.