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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. —A NASA spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun and plunged into the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona.

The scientists announced the news Tuesday at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

The Parker Solar Probe passed through the corona during the spacecraft’s eighth close approach to the sun in April. The scientists said it took several months to get the data back, and then a few more months to confirm.

“It’s fascinatingly exciting,” said project scientist Nour Raouafi of Johns Hopkins University.

Launched in 2018, Parker was 8 million miles (13 million kilometers) from the center of the sun when it first crossed the jagged, uneven boundary between the solar atmosphere and the outgoing solar wind. According to scientists, the spacecraft has dived and exited the corona at least three times, each a smooth transition.

“The first and most dramatic time we’ve been down for about five hours… Now you can think of five hours, that doesn’t sound like a lot,” Justin Kasper of the University of Michigan told reporters. But he noted that Parker was moving so fast that he had traveled such a great distance in that time, more than 62 miles (100 kilometers) per second.

According to Raouafi, the corona appeared dustier than expected. Future coronal excursions will help scientists better understand the origin of the solar wind and how it is heated and accelerated into space. Because the sun doesn’t have a solid surface, the corona is where the action happens; Exploring this magnetically dense region up close could help scientists better understand solar flares that could disrupt life here on Earth.

Preliminary data shows Parker also plunged into the corona during its ninth close approach in August, but more analysis is needed, scientists said. It made its 10th closing last month.

Parker will continue to move closer to the sun and plunge deeper into the corona until its grand final orbit in 2025.