Some day, perhaps as early as 2014, NASA hopes to send a spacecraft to within 1.3 million miles (2.1 million km) of the Sun. Author David J. McComas gives all the details of this fascinating mission in the December issue of Astronomy. The animation below presents Solar Probe’s proposed path, concentrating on the mission’s most important phase: the close approach to the Sun.
The Solar Probe flyby
Astronomers hope a proposed mission to study the Sun becomes reality.