The sun is 1.4 million kilometers in diameter. 6 meter from a 1 meter diameter sphere is relatively close.
Also the sun’s corona stretches out about 8 million kilometers from its surface, so for this probe its like its moving inside the earths atmosphere.
So… pretty dang close.
Helium can be cold enough for MRI yes. But the way its reported makes it seem that helium is always cold, which is not true.