NASA's Parker Solar Probe accomplished a milestone on June 27, 2023—its 16th orbit of the sun. This included a close approach to the sun (known as perihelion) on June 22, 2023, where the spacecraft came within 5.3 million miles of the solar surface while moving at 364,610 miles per hour. The spacecraft emerged from the solar flyby healthy and operating normally.

On Aug. 21, 2023, Parker Solar Probe will swing past Venus for its sixth flyby of the planet. To prepare for a smooth course, the mission team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) applied a small trajectory correction maneuver on June 7, 2023, the first course correction since March 2022.

This flyby will be the sixth of seven planned flybys of Venus during Parker's primary mission. Parker uses Venus's gravity to tighten its orbit around the sun and set up a future perihelion at just 4.5 million miles from the sun's surface.

Why do humans undertake journeys of personal exploration, or subject themselves to challenging conditions for long periods of time? What might we learn from their experiences?

British mountaineer George Mallory undertook his fatal attempt to summit Mount Everest in 1924 simply "because it's there". While such quests may have deeply personal motivations, research carried out during expeditions in extreme conditions can contribute to our understanding of how humans respond to environmental challenges.

The research outcomes can potentially be applied to a variety of settings, including remote locations here on Earth and even human space exploration.

Searching for extreme environments

Many explorers seek out "extreme environments." This term describes harsh and unusual environmental conditions where it is difficult for life forms like humans to survive and thrive.

Examples include places that experience extremes of temperature, pressure, altitude, rainfall, breathable air, natural light, or hazardous chemical concentrations.

In recent years, humans have undertaken many extreme experiments, either alone or in groups.

In June 2023, Joseph Dituri, a biomedical engineer at the University of South Florida, completed a record-breaking 100 days living 9.15 meters underwater in a special habitat.

Launched on July 1, 2023, the European Euclid mission will observe billions of galaxies over one-third of the sky to create a map of the Universe. But Euclid's map will be in black and white; telescopes in Hawai'i, including the Subaru Telescope, are needed to determine the colors of the galaxies. The color data will be used to deduce the distance, thus creating a 3D map, uncovering the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

The European Space Agency (ESA) Euclid space telescope mission will explore the mysteries of dark matter, dark energy, and cosmic evolution.