NASA going to the Sun, Jay Leno readies 'hot' jokes for coming years
Our favorite aerospace exploration organization will finally fulfill a 1958 recommendation from the National Academy of Sciences by sending the Solar Probe Plus into the Sun's atmosphere. It will be the first time any craft visits a star -- previous data have been collected from at least millions of miles away. Why the personal visit? Two main reasons: to determine why the sun's corona is millions of kelvin hotter than its visible surface, and to learn more about how that solar wind we've been hearing so much about lately gets accelerated. Look out for answers to these and other burning questions (we're getting started early!) sometime before 2018.
