Nasa is to announce a new mission to fly a spacecraft directly into the atmosphere of the sun.



Scientists hope to launch the Solar Probe Plus (SPP) in the summer of 2018.



Dr Lucie Green, a space scientist at University College London, told Justin Webb that the Nasa mission was being worked on "in parallel" to a similar mission by the European Space Agency.



She said the aim of both missions was to "help us get to a position where we can understand how the sun's atmosphere is created".



(Photo: Artist's impression of Solar Probe Plus spacecraft approaching the sun. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/NASA/PA Wire)