Touch The Sun
Touch The Sun!
When: May 31, 2025
Time: 12:00 pm–1:00 pm, followed by a Q&A
Where: Adler Planetarium Space Theater
NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft that would fly faster and travel closer to the Sun than any other object ever constructed. For the last six years, the probe has been collecting data on the evolution and origins of solar wind and helping scientists understand how changes in solar weather might affect us here on Earth. Join us for Touch the Sun to find out more about this unprecedented work and celebrate our favorite star!
The event includes a short sky show about the mission, created by the Fiske Planetarium, then you’ll get to hear from two mission scientists followed by a live Q&A. Before and after the event, enjoy Sun-related activities around the museum from 11:00 am–2:00 pm.
How To Reserve Tickets
To attend this event, tickets must be reserved online, in advance of your visit. Your event reservation ticket includes Museum Entry with access to all exhibitions.
If you would like to see one of our award-winning sky shows during your visit, sky show tickets can be purchased at the box office when you arrive at the Museum or outside one of the theaters on the day of your visit, subject to availability.
Reserve Tickets To This Lecture HereWhat Is The Parker Solar Probe?
The Parker Solar Probe is a NASA probe designed and built by the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and launched in 2018 to study properties of the Sun’s corona and solar wind. In December of 2024, it made its close approach of the Sun, coming within 4 million miles of the Sun’s surface and passing directly into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, 22 million miles closer to the Sun than the Helios 2 mission in 1976.
The main scientific goal of this mission? Better understand the dynamics of solar wind.
Astronomers have long wondered about some traits we see in the Sun’s corona – why is it hotter than the Sun’s surface? How does the solar wind accelerate when in this upper atmosphere? By passing within the corona, instruments on the Parker Solar Probe can study the Sun’s magnetic fields, plasma, and high-energy particles alongside imaging the solar wind itself.
Hear from astronomer Juliana Vievering, and software engineer Adrian Hill, about the discoveries made from the fastest man-made object ever created.
Thanks To Our Partners
This program is brought to you in partnership with NASA and Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.
