In what apparently will be the most daring missions ever undertaken for studying the Sun's behaviour, the European Space Agency (ESA) has officially adopted the Solar Orbiter mission, under which the spacecraft will be launched in 2017.

Going by the reports, the Solar Orbiter will chiefly collect samples of particles soon after the solar surface propels them off --- a mission for which it will pass within 26 million miles of the Sun; and endure 13 times more intense sunlight than what reaches the Earth.

US space agency, NASA, will also participate in the Europe-led Solar Orbiter mission, which will cost approximately one billion euros. NASA will provide the rocket which will send the spacecraft on its way, as well as two instruments for the probe.

Since the Solar Orbiter will literally be staring into a giant "furnace", with temperatures touching nearly 500C and extreme radioactivity, the test for the probe's onboard equipments - which will peek at the Sun through small slots - will be nothing short of massive.

According to ESA, it is being hoped that the Solar Orbiter probe will help the scientists get an insight to the manner in which the stream of high-energy particles - known as the `solar wind' - are generated by the Sun, to immerse the Earth as well as the other planets.

About the Solar Orbiter mission, Imperial College London's Tim Horbury - who is one of Solar Orbiter's lead scientists - said that the probe is largely about "getting close and joining up what happens on the Sun with what happens in space."