A new space mission is seeking to study the sun more closely than ever before. The mission involves a spacecraft called the Solar Orbiter, a joint project between the U.S. space agency NASA and the European Space Agency, ESA. The Solar Orbiter launched Sunday from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. An Atlas V rocket built by U.S.-based United Launch Alliance carried it into space. The spacecraft contains powerful telescopes and instruments to measure solar magnetism, radio waves, particles and radiation. The ESA said the Solar Orbiter will get as close as 42 million kilometers from the sun. The mission is expected to last seven years. One of its main goals is to capture the first pictures of the sun’s north and south poles.