Telescopes aren't enough
Even little children know that sun emits light and warmth. Adults are aware about the dangerous ultraviolet rays that also come from the Sun. By looking at other stars, we know that Sun's light rays go far beyond our solar system. A lot of information is gathered about our Sun, but it's not enough, as a telescope, and possibly a sonar, were the most powerful tools in our possesion. Not anymore! NASA is preparing a spacecraft that would withstand the extreme conditions and fly closer to the Sun than any other probe has ever been. Eight times closer, in fact!
This unique probe's mission will be to study the streams of charged particles the sun hurls into space, also known as "Solar Wind". This phenomenon can be examined much more accurately closer to it's center. Such a mission has never been undertaken before, so the probe will have to be very well protected. Current design involves a nine-foot-diameter, six-inch-thick, carbon-foam-filled solar shield above the probe. The probe is expected to fly by Sun at 125 miles/second and withstand 2600 degrees Fahrenheit. It will expirience solar intensity up to 500 times larger than spacecraft just above Earth, and any other unforseen solar blasts have to be taken into account.
The solar probe will not fly in a straigt line, as some may think. Instead, it will orbit around Sun near Venus for 7 years, gradually shrinking the distance to 6.6 million kilometers. As the total distance between Earth and Sun is roughly 150 million kilometers, this is very close.
The probe will be lauched in 2015, assuming we haven't blown ourselves up with nuclear bombs by that time. Evolution is more important than war, sadly, no-one understands that. On the other hand, war sort of speeds-up evolution. Anyway, several other probes are allready inspecting Solar phenomenons. The APL’s MESSENGER spacecraft will soon begin orbiting Mercury, sending home information about the Sun. Slowly but surely, we're exploring space.