NASA readies spacecraft for ‘Mission to touch the sun”

The spacecraft will have to survive temperatures as high as 1,371 Celsius, impacts by supersonic particles and powerful radiation as it circles as close as 7 million km to the sun.

Data sent back to Earth some 140 million km away will help scientists figure out why the sun's atmosphere, or corona, is hotter than its surface. But Parker Solar Probe's deputy project scientist believes it could also lead to unanticipated discoveries.