The Parker Solar Probe is expected to pass within an "unprecedented" 3.86 million miles of the solar surface on Dec. 24, according to NASA. "It's about to be on its closest approach to the sun," Rayl said.

The Parker Solar Probe will swoop just 6.1 million kilometers above the sun’s surface on Christmas Eve. Scientists are thrilled at what we might learn

The probe was just 3.8 million miles from the surface of the Sun as it whipped past at 430,000 miles per hour on December 24. The operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) received a tone from the spacecraft just before midnight (EST) on December 26 to indicate the vehicle was in good health and operating normally.