NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) has launched a two-year mission to map the heliosphere, the protective bubble around our solar system formed by the sun.

The probe studies high-energy solar particles, interplanetary magnetic fields, and cosmic dust from distant stars to better understand the sun’s activity and its interaction with interstellar space.

Scientists hope IMAP will shed light on how charged particles are energized by the sun and how the solar wind behaves at the heliosphere’s boundary.

The mission also provides near-real-time space weather data, helping forecasters predict impacts from solar flares, storms, and coronal mass ejections on Earth and spacecraft, CBS News has reported.

IMAP comes as solar activity has been steadily rising after a long period of low activity, with potential implications for space weather and technology.