The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft was launched into orbit early this morning on a mission to determine how the sun heats its atmosphere to millions of degrees, sending off rivers of particles that define the boundaries of the solar system.
The study is far from academic. Solar activity directly impacts Earth's climate and the space environment beyond the planet's atmosphere and solar storms can knock out power grids, disrupt radio signals and interfere with communications, navigation and other satellites in orbit.
"We live in a very complex society and the sun has a role to play in it," said physicist Alan Title, with Lockheed Martin Space Systems Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, California, which designed and built the telescope.
The mission is designed to observe how solar material moves, gathers energy and heats up as it travels through a little-understood region in the sun...