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''' ORBITER ''SOLAR''
OPTIMUM '' '''
THE VERY FIRST IMAGES FROM a new solar mission - the closest ever taken of the sun - reveals a ubiquitous burbling of miniature solar flares.
The discovery may provide some clues for how turbulence heats the atmosphere of the sun and drives ebb and flow of solar wind, the high-velocity charged particles throughout the solar system that buffet Earth and the other planets.
''We've never been closer to the sun with a camera,'' Daniel Muller, the project scientist for the mission, Solar Orbiter said during a news conference held by the European Space Agency. ''And this is just the beginning of the long epic journey of Solar Orbiter.''
The miniature solar flares, which the scientists call campfires, were seen as the spacecraft made its first close approach to the sun. It came within 48 million miles of the sun's surface, which is just a bit more than half of the distance between Earth and the sun.
The campfires are about one-millionth or or one billionth the size of flares that have been observed from Earth. The sun is currently in the quiet part of its 11-year-solar cycle, and the surface looks placid.
''But then when you look at it at high resolution, it's amazing, in the smallest details, how much stuff is going on there,'' said David Bergmans of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, principal investigator of an instrument that takes high-resolution images of the lower layers of the sun's atmosphere.
''We couldn't believe this when we first saw this. And we started giving it crazy names like campfires and dark fibrils and ghosts and whatever we saw.''
Solar orbiter is a joint mission for the European and NASA, which paid for the rocket that took the probe to space.
One of the spacecraft's other instruments measures the magnetic field near the surface of the sun. And it was already able to observe an active region on a part of the surface that is not visible from earth.
With the new views, ''we're starting to see the whole beast,'' said Sam Solanki of the Max Planck's Institute for Solar System Research.
Launched in February, the mission will provide a new perspective on the sun as it completes 22 orbits in 10 years.
While most previous solar missions orbited in the ecliptic, or the same plane that the planets travel around the sun, the orbit of Solar Orbiter will tilt upward so that it will have a better view of our star's North and South Poles.
The discovery may provide some clues for how turbulence heats the atmosphere of the sun and drives ebb and flow of solar wind, the high-velocity charged particles throughout the solar system that buffet Earth and the other planets.
''We've never been closer to the sun with a camera,'' Daniel Muller, the project scientist for the mission, Solar Orbiter said during a news conference held by the European Space Agency. ''And this is just the beginning of the long epic journey of Solar Orbiter.''
The miniature solar flares, which the scientists call campfires, were seen as the spacecraft made its first close approach to the sun. It came within 48 million miles of the sun's surface, which is just a bit more than half of the distance between Earth and the sun.
The campfires are about one-millionth or or one billionth the size of flares that have been observed from Earth. The sun is currently in the quiet part of its 11-year-solar cycle, and the surface looks placid.
''But then when you look at it at high resolution, it's amazing, in the smallest details, how much stuff is going on there,'' said David Bergmans of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, principal investigator of an instrument that takes high-resolution images of the lower layers of the sun's atmosphere.
''We couldn't believe this when we first saw this. And we started giving it crazy names like campfires and dark fibrils and ghosts and whatever we saw.''
Solar orbiter is a joint mission for the European and NASA, which paid for the rocket that took the probe to space.
One of the spacecraft's other instruments measures the magnetic field near the surface of the sun. And it was already able to observe an active region on a part of the surface that is not visible from earth.
With the new views, ''we're starting to see the whole beast,'' said Sam Solanki of the Max Planck's Institute for Solar System Research.
Launched in February, the mission will provide a new perspective on the sun as it completes 22 orbits in 10 years.
While most previous solar missions orbited in the ecliptic, or the same plane that the planets travel around the sun, the orbit of Solar Orbiter will tilt upward so that it will have a better view of our star's North and South Poles.
That change of view could help solve mysteries about the sun's magnetic fields and how they accelerate those solar wind particles.
The data from Solar Orbiter could help explain the sunspot cycle - Why does the cycle last 11 years? Why are some quiet while others roar violently? - and help models to predict solar storms that could disrupt earth's power grids and satellites in orbit.
The spacecraft carries 10 scientific instruments. Some measure what is happening directly around the spacecraft, like the magnetic fields and particles of the solar wind. Others take pictures of what is occurring on the sun.
As the orbiter approaches the sun, those peepholes in the heat shield will open to allow the instruments to collect data. The assorted cameras also have heat-resistant windows [think of them as scientific sunglasses] as protection.
The cameras will look at a range of wavelengths of light, including ultraviolet and X-rays. Some of the cameras break the light into separate wavelengths to identify specific molecules.
One instrument, the coronagraph, includes a disk to block out most of the light and only look at what is going on in the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, which you can observe during a total solar eclipse.
'' As far as taking high-resolution images goes, there are two options: getting closer to the object of interest, or building a better bigger telescope. ''That's a little bit like going on an expedition. You either get closer to the elephant or you use a bigger camera.
The Honor and Serving of the latest news on voyages, experiments and optics of the Solar System, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Kenneth Chang.
With respectful dedication to the Space Scientists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.
See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Sunning Surfaces '''
The data from Solar Orbiter could help explain the sunspot cycle - Why does the cycle last 11 years? Why are some quiet while others roar violently? - and help models to predict solar storms that could disrupt earth's power grids and satellites in orbit.
The spacecraft carries 10 scientific instruments. Some measure what is happening directly around the spacecraft, like the magnetic fields and particles of the solar wind. Others take pictures of what is occurring on the sun.
As the orbiter approaches the sun, those peepholes in the heat shield will open to allow the instruments to collect data. The assorted cameras also have heat-resistant windows [think of them as scientific sunglasses] as protection.
The cameras will look at a range of wavelengths of light, including ultraviolet and X-rays. Some of the cameras break the light into separate wavelengths to identify specific molecules.
One instrument, the coronagraph, includes a disk to block out most of the light and only look at what is going on in the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, which you can observe during a total solar eclipse.
'' As far as taking high-resolution images goes, there are two options: getting closer to the object of interest, or building a better bigger telescope. ''That's a little bit like going on an expedition. You either get closer to the elephant or you use a bigger camera.
The Honor and Serving of the latest news on voyages, experiments and optics of the Solar System, continues. The World Students Society thanks author Kenneth Chang.
With respectful dedication to the Space Scientists, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world.
See Ya all prepare and register for Great Global Elections on The World Students Society : wssciw.blogspot.com and Twitter - !E-WOW! - The Ecosystem 2011:
''' Sunning Surfaces '''
Good Night and God Bless
SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless
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