NASA spacecraft on mission to 'touch the sun' looks back to take shot of Earth

<p class = "canvas-atom-canvas-text Mb (1.0em) Mb (0) – sm Mt (0.8em) – sm" type = "text" content = "NASA's Parker Solar Probe is on an epic mission – it's going to the first spacecraft to fly into the million-degree surface of the sun, it's corona. "Data-reactid =" 31 ">NASA's Parker Solar Probe is on an epic mission – it's going to the first spacecraft to fly into the million-degree surface of the sun, it's corona.

The spacecraft turned its WISPR (Wide-field Imaging for Solar Probe) imaging instrument towards Earth – taking a picture which shows how tiny our planet looks from space.

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NASA said, 'The hemispherical shaped feature in the middle of the right-hand image is a lens flare, a common feature when imaging bright sources, which is caused by reflections within the lens system. In this case, the flare is due to the bright Earthshine.

The probe starts this year, and tries to fly closer to the previous spaceship – in the process answering questions about our star.

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The mission will take seven years, and will revolutionize our understanding of the sun.

The previous closest to the Sun was by a probe called Helios 2, which in 1976 came within 27 million miles.

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MORE: Mother's voice 'more likely to wake a sleeping child than the sound of a smoke alarm'"data-reactid =" 58 ">MORE: Dognappers hold a knife to the stomach of pregnant mother as they steal eight newborn puppies
MORE: Mother's voice 'more likely to wake a sleeping child than the sound of a smoke alarm'

By way of comparison, the average distance from the Sun for Earth is 93 million miles.

The corona gives rise to the solar wind, a continuous flow of particles that permeates the solar system.

Unpredictable Solar Winds Cause Disturbances in our planet's magnetic field and can play havoc with communications technology on Earth.

NASA hopes the findings will be enabled scientists to forecast changes in Earth's space environment.