NASA has launched a first-of-its-kind solar observatory into space yesterday in hopes of expanding scientists' understanding of the sun and its complicated workings. A two-stage Atlas rocket roared off its launch pad from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) into space. Space physicists have called SDO the cornerstone of future NASA missions to study the sun, which is considered the next frontier for US space research. NASA said the probe will be especially helpful in revealing how changes in the sun alter the levels of radiation and energy within our solar system, and will provide new information concerning the sun and solar system that directly affect Earth, its inhabitants and technology. NASA said the spacecraft will send about 1.5 terabytes of data back to Earth each day — the equivalent of streaming 380 full-length movies. Among the questions researchers hope to answer is how the sun's magnetic field is generated and how stored magnetic energy changes into kinetic energy, in the form of solar wind and energy particles.