© Provided by CNET NASA's orbital gateway for its moon missions. NASA

NASA has chosen the first two scientific investigations for its mission to the moon: observing space weather and monitoring the sun's radiation. The instruments will sit aboard NASA's Gateway outpost orbiting the moon for NASA's Artemis moon operations, it announced Thursday.

The sun radiation instrument was built by the European Space Agency and aims to keep astronauts safe, while the space weather instrument was built by NASA. It'll "observe solar particles and solar wind" to help predict possible sudden outbursts by the sun.



"Our Sun and the environment around it is very dynamic," said Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science. "This instrument suite will help us observe the particles and energy that our star emits -- and mitigate the risks to astronauts at the Moon and eventually Mars."