Our sun is far from the flawless orb of light we see in the sky. Spacecraft observations have long shown that, up close, the "surface" of our star rumbles with powerful eddies and is dotted with fiery sunspots that occasionally burp superheated material into space — a phenomenon that occurs even more frequently during phases of increased turbulence on our star, like the one we're experiencing now.
Scientists are hoping NASA's Parker Solar Probe will get a unique taste of the sun's wrath on Christmas Eve, when it will swoop within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the sun's surface — the closest yet a human-made object has ever gotten to our star. At this record distance, the probe is already expected to cut through plumes of plasma still rooted to the sun, akin to a surfer diving under a crashing wave.
