NASA's announcement on 1st mission 'to touch the Sun' today: What you should know about the Solar Probe Plus

New Delhi: All eyes are set on NASA as the US space agency is about to reveal details about its first mission 'to touch the Sun' today.

At 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, NASA will make an announcement about the agency’s first mission to fly directly into our Sun’s atmosphere.

The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency’s website.

NASA says Solar Probe Plus, the agency's first spacecraft to the Sun, will revolutionise human understanding of the Sun as well as provide insight on a critical in the Sun-Earth connection.

Here are some important things to know about NASA's first mission to the Sun:

• The Solar Probe Plus is set to take off in the summer of 2018.
• The spacecraft will come as close as 3.9 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) to the Sun, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.
• It will swoop closer to the Sun’s surface than any spacecraft had ever had before, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions.
• Scientists hope the probe, by getting up close and personal with out star, will answer some of the mistifying questions like - Why is the corona hotter than the surface? Why is there a solar wind?

To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield