The Solar Dynamics Observatory

On February 11, 2010, NASA launched a new satellite, called the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), to travel to the sun. As its name suggests, the spacecraft will be studying the sun, with which we are still not very familiar. This mission is important because solar activity dictates the weather of the entire solar system, so the more we know about the sun, the more we can anticipate about our life on the earth.

The SDO will be placed in geosynchronous orbit so that it can effectively send its data back to scientists in New Mexico. According to NASA, the SDO will be collecting so much data, it will fill one CD's worth of information in only 36 seconds.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched aboard an Atlas V rocket