NASA Announces Parker Solar Probe Mission to Predict Solar Storms:

NASA will send a probe to "touch the sun" to help prepare for a "huge solar event" that could wreak havoc on Earth. The space agency today announced the "extraordinary and historic mission exploring arguably the last and most important region of the solar system". In 2018, Nasa will send a craft called the Parker Probe Plus on a journey which will see it come within four million miles of the searing surface of the sun, facing heat and radiation more intense than any spacecraft has endured before. The Parker probe will repeatedly swoop at 118 miles per second through the sun's corona. The mission will provide clues as to why stars formed, but it's also a prevention exercise to help defend Earth from a potentially crippling solar flare. Space boffins want to understand the processes behind solar flares and "storms" which send radioactive particles hurtling towards Earth. It's feared storms could knock out satellites and bring down the communications networks that keep modern society connected.

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