Mission to the sun

The sun, the very centerpiece of our solar system and the most important source of energy for life on Earth, is on the verge of receiving a visitor.

On Aug. 4, NASA will launch its Parker Solar Probe, a spacecraft with the unprecedented mission of traversing nearly 93 million miles to study some of the sun's biggest secrets. It's named after astrophysicist Eugene Parker, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago, who discovered the phenomenon now known as solar wind.

"The solar probe is going to a region of space that has never been explored before," said Parker in a statement last year. "It’s very exciting that we’ll finally get a look. One would like to have some more detailed measurements of what’s going on in the solar wind. I’m sure that there will be some surprises. There always are."

"Placed in orbit within 4 million miles of the sun’s surface, and facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history, the spacecraft will explore the sun’s outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of how stars work," NASA said in a 2017 statement. "The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space."