LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: And this morning, NASA launched a spacecraft at the sun.</s>PATRICK MOORE: Liftoff of the mighty Delta IV Heavy rocket with NASA's Parker Solar Probe - a daring mission to shed light on the mysteries of our closest star, the Sun.</s>LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST: That probe is now on a seven-year journey to study the thing that's responsible for our life here on Earth. It will attempt to get within 4 million miles of the sun. That's really, really close. And the probe is, of course, equipped with heat shields. It will study temperatures and the flow of solar wind. And it will gather data that could affect the future of human spaceflight. Of course, scholars of Greek mythology will remember the story of Icarus. But we can report, happily, that the heat shield is not made of wax but super-light carbon.
This morning, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe. The probe will attempt to get closer to the sun than any other human-made object.