European space missions announced

PARIS, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency has announced its next two science missions -- to study our sun closer than ever before and to search for mysterious "dark matter."

The missions, Solar Orbiter and Euclid, were selected Tuesday by ESA's Science Program Committee for implementation, with launches planned for 2017 and 2019, a release from ESA headquarters in Paris said.

Solar Orbiter will venture closer to the sun than any previous mission to study how the sun generates and propels the flow of particles that constantly bathe the Earth, known as the solar wind.

Euclid, a space telescope, will map out the large-scale structure of the universe to try to solve the mystery is why the universe is expanding at an ever-accelerating rate.

The unknown nature of the force driving the cosmic acceleration has led astronomers to dub it "dark energy."

Euclid's study of its effects on the galaxies and clusters of galaxies that trace the large-scale structure of the universe may help provide clues to the exact nature of dark energy, astronomers said.