Nasa probe blasts off on mission to 'touch the Sun'

Information from the Parker Solar Probe will help protect Earth from solar wind and geomagnetic storms

This photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe on board launching from the Mobile Service Tower. AFP/NASA

A photo made available by NASA shows the team behind the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) posing for a group photo in front of the probe, at Astrotech Space Operations. EPA/NASA

A photo made available by the NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun. EPA/NASA

A photo made available by the NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun. EPA/NASA

A photo made available by NASA shows the Mobile Service Tower is rolled back to reveal the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard. EPA/NASA

A photo made available by NASA shows an artists' impression of the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) approaching the Sun. EPA/NASA

This photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back. AFP/NASA

This photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back. AFP/NASA

A photo made available by the NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun. EPA/NASA

In this photo provided by NASA, The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun. Getty/NASA

This photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard moments before launch. AFP/NASA

This t photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket seen in this long exposure photograph as it launches NASA's Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun. AFP/NASA

Nasa on Sunday blasted off a $1.5 billion spacecraft towards the Sun on a historic mission to protect the Earth by unveiling the mysteries of dangerous solar storms.

The launch of the Parker Solar Probe lit up the sky as a Delta IV-Heavy rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 3.31am US time.

The unmanned spacecraft aims to get closer than any man-made object in history to the centre of our solar system.

The probe is designed to plunge into the Sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, during a seven-year mission.

It is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that can endure unprecedented levels of heat, and radiation 500 times that experienced on Earth.

Nasa has billed the mission as the first spacecraft to "touch the Sun".

In reality, it should come within 6.16 million kilometres of the Sun's surface, close enough to study the curious phenomenon of the solar wind and the Sun's atmosphere, which is 300 times hotter than its surface.

The car-sized probe is designed to give scientists a better understanding of solar wind and geomagnetic storms that risk wreaking chaos on Earth by knocking out power grids.

These solar outbursts are poorly understood, but pack the potential to wipe out power to millions of people.

A worst-case scenario could cost up to $2 trillion in the first year alone and take a decade to fully recover from, experts said.

"The Parker Solar Probe will help us do a much better job of predicting when a disturbance in the solar wind could hit Earth," said Justin Kasper, a project scientist and professor at the University of Michigan.

Knowing more about the solar wind and space storms will also help protect future deep space explorers as they journey towards the Moon or Mars.

The probe is guarded by an ultra-powerful heat shield that is just 11 centimetres thick, enabling the spacecraft to survive its close shave with the fiery star.

Even in a region where temperatures can reach more than a 555,500°C, the sunlight is expected to heat the shield to just around 1,370°C.

If all works as planned, the inside of the spacecraft should stay at just 29°C.

An artist's rendering of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Steve Gribben / Johns Hopkins APL / Nasa via AP

The goal for the Parker Solar Probe is to make 24 passes through the corona during its seven-year mission.

"The sun is full of mysteries," said Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

"We are ready. We have the perfect payload. We know the questions we want to answer."

The spacecraft is the only Nasa probe in history to be named after a living person — in this case, solar physicist Eugene Parker, 91, who first described the solar wind in 1958.

Mr Parker said last week that he was "impressed" by the Parker Solar Probe, calling it "a very complex machine".

Nasa chief of the science mission directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, said Mr Parker was an "incredible hero of our scientific community" and called the probe one of Nasa's most "strategically important" missions.

Scientists have wanted to build a spacecraft like this for more than 60 years, but only in recent years did the heat shield technology advance enough to be capable of protecting sensitive instruments.

Tools on board will measure high-energy particles associated with flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as the changing magnetic field around the Sun.

A white light imager will take pictures of the atmosphere right in front of the Sun.

When it nears the Sun, the probe will travel rapidly enough to go from New York to Tokyo in one minute — about 690,000 kilometres per hour, making it the fastest man-made object.

Astrophysicist Eugene Parker, centre, stands in front of the rocket carrying the solar probe named after him. Nasa via AP