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NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has ever ventured.
The Parker Solar Probe will endure wicked heat while zooming through space to learn more about solar winds.
The robotic spacecraft is the size of a small car and is due to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, on or around August 6 for a seven-year mission.
It is set to fly into the Sun's corona within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft.
"To send a probe where you haven't been before is ambitious, to send it into such brutal conditions is highly ambitious," Nicola Fox, a project scientist from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told a news conference on Friday.