A trip to the Sun

[XM5ER]

And nowhere near Wapping.

http://www.space.com/37023-solar-probe-plus-nasa-a...

"NASA officials are scheduled to make an announcement tomorrow (May 31) regarding the agency's first-ever mission to fly directly into the punishing heat of the sun's atmosphere."

I'm quite excited about this, I think the results will give us more questions than answers.

[XM5ER]

What other probes have we done? I'm ashamed to admit I don't recall them.

[XM5ER]

I think the BBC's headline is pretty accurate, none of the other observatories (SOHO etc) got any closer than the Earth already is. O/T I love the SOHO website, I think our knowledge of the sun is so under-explored. Cant wait to see the results of this probe.

[XM5ER]

This was the previous closest probe

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_(spacecraft)

27 Million miles and a whole 500kb or memory storage (actually pretty massive at the time).

[XM5ER]

Cool

[XM5ER]

V8LM said:

I know what they mean, but "... seven times closer ..."

Actually, I don't. WTF does that mean.