Send your name to the sun

The US space agency is giving people around the world a chance to send their names to the Sun.

All the selected names will be put on a microchip aboard the spacecraft – Parker Solar Probe.

What is the Parker Solar Probe?
The spaceship will be about the size of a small car, and won’t literally ‘touch’ the Sun. It’ll burn up way before it gets there!
But it WILL be travelling deep into the sun’s atmosphere. Scientists have spent 60 years working on the project, which is expected to cost more than £1 billion to build and launch the spacecraft.
Getting close to the Sun won’t be easy! As the Sun is a star made up of hot plasma and it is very very hot – at the surface about 5,600C!

So what do you have to do?
All you have to do is go to the Nasa website, find this form and fill it in. CLICK HERE to add your name to the list. you have until the 29th April 2018.
But you’ll need an email address to be able to send your name to Nasa, so if you don’t have one yourself, ask a parent or guardian to help.

Why is this mission so important?
The Sun is the only star we can study up close, and by learning more about it we can find more about other stars throughout the universe.Also, because the Sun is a source of light and heat for life on Earth, the more we know about it, the more we can understand how life on Earth developed. If everything goes to plan the spacecraft will be launched next summer about 4 million miles from the Sun’s surface.