Weekly Science & Technology Report

Solar Probe+ NASA's Solar Probe+ will study the sun's exterior. NASA In a mission to learn more about the sun's inner workings, NASA is planning to launch a specially shielded spacecraft in 2018 that will plunge into the solar atmosphere. The car-sized Solar Probe Plus will explore an area just 4 million miles from the star's surface, the last region of the solar system to be explored by humans. NASA just announced five science experiments that will fly on the scorching probe, which will be protected by a carbon-fiber heat shield that can withstand temperatures of 2,500 degrees F. When the probe is 4 million miles away, the solar disk will loom 23 times wider in the sky than it does on Earth. The mission will help scientists better understand solar radiation. Improved solar storm forecasts could protect future long-distance space explorers who would not be protected by Earth's magnetic field. The SWEAP solar wind experiment will count the electrons, protons and helium ions in the solar wind and me