 In 2023, the Parker Solar probe set a new speed record and entered the sun's atmosphere, the corona, for the second time. The probe, launched in 2018, has an elliptical orbit around the sun that brings it closer on every pass. In 2022, following a gravity assist from a Venus flyby, it reached 586,000 km per hour. That's 364,000 miles per hour. It passed within 8,500,000 km of the sun's surface. That's 5,300,000 miles. That's inside the sun's corona. The 2023 pass was faster and took it even closer. The sun has a superheated atmosphere, made of solar material bound to the sun by gravity and magnetic forces. As rising heat and pressure push that material away from the sun, it reaches a point where gravity and magnetic fields are too weak to contain it. At that point, known as the Alfven critical surface, the solar atmosphere ends and the solar wind begins. Solar material, with the energy to make it across that boundary, drags the sun's magnetic field with it as it travels across the solar system, to the earth and beyond. During its eighth flyby, at around 13 million km, or 8.1 million miles above the solar surface, the Parker Solar probe encountered the sun's atmosphere magnetic and particle conditions. It had crossed the Alfven critical surface and entered the solar atmosphere. This is quite an accomplishment. The probe will provide us with deeper insights into our sun's evolution and its impacts on our solar system, including the solar wind and its impact on the earth.