The longtime dream to probe the Sun could already be achieved next year with the help of the robotic spacecraft of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It is worth noting that no space mission has ever reached yet the extra hot star.

New reports have revealed that the first robotic spacecraft of the agency would travel "within" six million kilometers just to get to the Sun. Accordingly, it would explore the atmosphere of the center of the Solar System, which is 149 kilometers away from the Earth.

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"This is going to be our first mission to fly to the Sun," NASA research scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Centre Eric Christian said. While he noted that "We can't get to the very surface of the Sun," he revealed that the team will ensure they would go the closest possible distance.

Called the Solar Probe Mission to the Sun, NASA's upcoming undertaking is expected to uncover answers three major questions. The first question to be answered by the NASA mission would be on the observation that the Sun's surface (photosphere) is not as hot as its atmosphere (corona).

The surface is said to be at around 5,500 degrees Celsius. "You would think the farther away you get from a heat source, you would get colder," Christian said. "Why the atmosphere is hotter than the surface is a big puzzle."

The second question is in the high-energy particles that the Sun emits. The scientists would like to uncover the phenomenon behind it, especially that these particles put them in danger.

"The Sun blows a stream of charged particles in all directions at a million miles an hour," Christian said the upcoming NASA mission. "But we do not understand how that gets accelerated."

Furthermore, the 2018 NASA exploration also aims to gather data on the activities of the Sun that could be critical in forecasting space weather events and how they could affect life.