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An answer to the question Has any object launched from Earth gone into the Sun? says
The probe will repeatedly touch the outer corona until mission end in 2025, with the closest approach being 3.83 million miles.
Could the probe go any lower into the corona for a short period of time, similar to the duration the probe will be doing in its orbit, and remain in the same operating condition?
No. Any closer, the sun would peek around the edges of the probe's shield, like an annular eclipse, and fry some of its parts. Almost a duplicate question: https://space.stackexchange.com/a/38657/1235
The Sun's corona extends for millions of miles. The Sun's corona is much hotter (by a factor from 150 to 450x) than the visible surface of the Sun: the photosphere's average temperature is 5800 kelvin compared to the corona's one to three million kelvin. Never the less he corona is a trillion times less particle density. The parker probe will by 11 million miles from the Sun. Without it's current solar shield the probe would last 10 seconds. So a million miles closer it'd probably melt or incinerate.
