NEW YORK (AP) — A NASA spacecraft aims to fly closer to the
sun than any object sent before.

The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 to get a close-up
look at the sun. Since then, it has flown straight through the
sun’s corona: the outer atmosphere visible during a total solar
eclipse.

The next milestone: closest approach to the sun. Plans call for
Parker on Tuesday to hurtle through the sizzling solar atmosphere
and pass within a record-breaking 3.8 million miles of the sun’s
surface.

NASA said at that moment, if the sun and Earth were at opposite
ends of a football field, Parker "would be on the 4-yard line.”

Mission managers won’t know how Parker fared until days after
the flyby since the spacecraft will be out of communication range.

The 233-foot tall probe before launch from Cape Canaveral.

(Los Angeles) – Art Evans, the actor known for his roles in Die
Hard 2 (1990) and A Soldier’s Story (1984), died Saturday. The
cause of death was not disclosed.

One of Evans’s early roles was the first victim in the John
Carpenter horror film Christine (1983).

Arthur James Evans
(March 27, 1942 – December 21, 2024)

Art Evans autographed photo of his role in “Christine.”

On December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony
No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67—the “Fifth Symphony”—received
its world premiere in Vienna. It was a benefit concert held
for Beethoven at the Theater an der Wien. It would soon
become the world’s most recognizable piece of classical
music.

Ludwig van Beethoven
(baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827)

ROSS SIMPSON

    
Madonna, aged 42, married Guy Ritchie, who was ten years
her junior, in a ceremony steeped in the groom’s Scottish heritage. 

On December 22, 1956, a baby gorilla named Colo entered the
world at the Columbus Zoo in Ohio, becoming the first-ever
gorilla born in captivity. Weighing in at approximately 4 pounds,
Colo, a western lowland gorilla whose name was a combination
of Columbus and Ohio, was the daughter of Millie and Mac, two
gorillas captured in French Cameroon, Africa, who were brought
to the Columbus Zoo in 1951.

Mother Millie with her daughter Colo who died in 2017.