 NASA to launch 1st-ever mission to 'touch' the Sun by 2018
NASA is launching an unmanned spacecraft named 'Parker Solar Probe' to the Sun on July 31, 2018. The mission to "touch" the Sun would reach within 60 lakh km of the solar surface, eight times closer than any man-made object before. The mission would study why Corona, Sun's outer atmosphere (17 lakh ÂºC) is hotter than the surface (5,500 ÂºC).