Europe to lead daring Sun Mission

Europe is to lead the most ambitious space mission ever undertaken to study the behaviour of the Sun.

 "Europe to lead daring Sun mission" BBC News online

Europe is to lead the most ambitious space mission ever undertaken to study the behaviour of the Sun. Known as Solar Orbiter, the probe will have to operate a mere 42 million km from our star - closer than any spacecraft to date. The mission proposal was formally adopted by European Space Agency (Esa) member states on Tuesday...'Solar Orbiter is not so much about taking high-resolution pictures of the Sun, although we'll get those; it's about getting close and joining up what happens on the Sun with what happens in space,' explained Tim Horbury [Physics] from Imperial College London and one of Solar Orbiter's lead scientists. 'The solar wind and coronal mass ejections - these big releases of material coming off the Sun; we don't know precisely where they're coming from, and precisely how they're generated. Solar Orbiter can help us understand that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15146082