NASA spacecraft rockets toward sun for closest look yet

From CBC

A NASA spacecraft rocketed toward the sun Sunday on an unprecedented quest to get closer to our star than anything ever sent before.
The Parker Solar Probe will fly straight through the wispy edges of the corona, or outer solar atmosphere, that was visible during last August's total solar eclipse. It eventually will get within six million kilometres of the sun's surface, staying comfortably cool despite the extreme heat and radiation, and allowing scientists to vicariously explore the sun in a way never before possible.

No wonder scientists consider it the coolest, hottest mission under the sun, and what better day to launch to the sun than Sunday as NASA noted.

"Fly baby girl, fly!!" project scientist Nicola Fox of Johns Hopkins University tweeted just before liftoff. She urged it to "go touch the sun!"

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/nasa-parker-solar-probe-sun-launch-1.4782448

This is quite an impressive feat and will require orders of magnitude more energy to accomplish than visiting mars. Going out past the earth allows us to harness the power of the earth's rotation around the sun. This mission will have battle against all that inertia in order to head towards the sun. Putting aside the energy requirements, holy fuck, it's the sun!