The complete story of the Parker Solar Probe: how engineers built a spacecraft that could survive touching the Sun and what it has revealed about stellar physics

Engineers wrapped the heat shield in white ceramic paint, bolted it to the front of a car-sized spacecraft, and aimed the whole assembly at a star. The Parker Solar Probe lifted off from Cape Canaveral on August 12, 2018, atop a Delta IV Heavy, beginning a journey no machine had ever attempted: repeated dives into the outer atmosphere of the Sun. Nearly eight years on, the probe has flown through the Sun’s corona for the first time in history, mapped the elusive boundary where the solar wind is born...