Study of the Sun Earth Connection—Part I
With so much attention on Mars and the return to the Moon, the Sun is considered one of the last unexplored regions of the entire solar system, yet it has had a 400-year historical love-affair with hundreds of astronomers. The solar corona is one of the most important regions in space to better understand the Sun-Earth Connections, which is why NASA has developed the Outer Solar System/Solar Probe Project.
To study the Sun better, the Solar Probe mission was developed in order to explore the source of the solar wind from inside the solar corona at 4 to 110 radii from the Sun’s center. The goal is to better understand the Sun’s processes regarding the heat processes and also the “whys” of the development of its solar wind. With the Solar Probe the third of three missions, it will be one of the most historic missions as is flies directly into the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time approaching at a distance of 3RS above the surface of the Sun, employing a combination of in-situ measurements and imaging.
The reason the mission began had a lot to do with what NASA considers the the “solar corona problem”, originating from a region around the Sun which extends more than one million kilometers from the surface of the Sun and is a temperature of two million degrees. This is the area which emits X-ray radiation and also is seen during solar eclipses, when the passage of the Moon blocks the main radiation from the surface of the Sun.
Considered a voyage of comprehension, the Solar Probe is a one of exploration and discovery. By flying through the Sun’s solar corona, it will be in an area which is believed to produce the fast solar winds. It will also be in streamers, which is where the slow solar wind is thought to originate. “We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time,” says program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. “This is an unexplored region of the solar system and the possibilities for discovery are off the charts.”
(idea contributed by Jennifer Houser of Ogallala, NE)
This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 2:39 am and is filed under Space Agency News, Technical Concerns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
