Solar missions

Solar winds bombard Earth every day, yet we do not exactly know where these particles are created or how they are accelerated. Next year will see two groundbreaking missions to the Sun - where over 99 per cent of the mass in the Solar System is contained. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is expected to launch at the end of July, with its spaceship due to fly closer to the Sun than ever before; coming within 6.2 million kilometres (3.9 million miles) of its surface. After launch, it will spend nearly seven years heading through the Sun’s atmosphere, with Venus' assistance. By battling into the dangerous corona it is hoped that we will be able to begin unravelling the mysteries of our star, which have eluded scientists for decades. Its main aims are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona, and explain what accelerates the solar wind.

While the Parker probe is on its way, ESA will launch its own mission to study the Sun: the Solar Orbiter now due to launch in October 2018. Carrying ten instruments, the orbiter will study the surface of the Sun, the changing solar wind flows and the cause of the 11-year solar cycle. It will reach its orbit, 43 million kilometres (26.7-million-miles) from the Sun even closer than Mercury - three and a half years after its launch, where it will spend approximately three more years in orbit.

Launch will be between 31 July and 19 August 2018

The probe will reach the closest point to the Sun in 2024

Mission is scheduled to end in 2025