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Christmas will be full of brightness for NASA's Parker Solar Probe as it will fly closest to the fiery surface of the sun ever in human history on Christmas Eve.

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This is the closest any man-made machine will travel to the burning star. Parker will be at a distance of 3.8 million miles from the surface of the star. 

It will zoom towards the star at around 430,000 mph while cutting through the plumes of plasma while encircling it, said the space agency in a statement.

During its closest approach, the probe will lose contact with the 110-pound spacecraft, which is the fastest object ever created on Earth. 

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Also Read: Earth to be hit by devastating solar flare which will be equal to billions of atomic bombs, warn scientists

On December 27, a beacon tone will be transmitted by Parker to mission operators at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland to confirm its health after the flyby.

Speaking about the NASA probe, Parker programme scientist Arik Posner said, “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks."

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NASA's Parker probe and its ambitious plan

In 2018, the Parker probe was launched by NASA as part of its Living With a Star programme, which is aimed at “touching” the sun. 

Since then, the Parker probe has circled the flaming hot sun more than 20 times to explore its outermost layer called the corona, which can uncover how life is affected by the sun-earth system.

The study of the corona provides them with insight into topics which include solar wind and space weather that can interact with the magnetic field of Earth and can damage the satellites, supercharge the northern lights, and knock out power grids.

Watch: ISRO Successfully Launches ESA’s Proba-3 Mission To Study Sun’s Corona

The flyby on Christmas Eve will be among the first of three last close swings planned as part of the mission.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” explained Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at APL.

“We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun,” he said.

The mission was renamed to honour American physicist Eugene Parker in 2017, making it the first NASA spacecraft to have been named after a living person.

(With inputs taken from agencies)