From:Subject: FW: NASA solves 30-year solar puzzle with 5 minutes and $5 million
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 21:14:39 -0600
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
Janet L. Anderson
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov
Jan. 23, 2013
RELEASE : 13-030
NASA Telescope Observes How Sun Stores and Releases Energy
WASHINGTON -- A NASA suborbital telescope has given scientists the first clear evidence of energy transfer from the sun's magnetic field to the solar atmosphere or corona. This process, known as solar braiding, has been theorized by researchers, but remained unobserved until now.
Researchers were able to witness this phenomenon in the highest resolution images ever taken of the solar corona. These images were obtained by the agency's High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) telescope, which was launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico in July 2012.
"Scientists have tried for decades to understand how the sun's dynamic atmosphere is heated to millions of degrees," said Hi-C principal investigator Jonathan Cirtain, a heliophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "Because of the level of solar activity, we were able to clearly focus on an active sunspot, and obtain some remarkable images. Seeing this for the first time is a major advance in understanding how our sun continuously generates the vast amount of energy needed to heat its atmosphere."
The telescope, the centerpiece of a payload weighing 464 pounds and measuring 10-feet long, flew for about 10 minutes and captured 165 images of a large, active region in the sun's corona. The telescope acquired data for five minutes, taking one image every five seconds. Initial image sequences demonstrated the evolution of the magnetic field and showed the repeated release of energy through activity seen on the sun at temperatures of 2 million to 4 million degrees.
Many of the stars in the universe have magnetic fields. The evolution of these fields is used to explain the emission of the star and any events like flares. Understanding how the magnetic field of the sun heats the solar atmosphere helps explain how all magnetized stars evolve.
These observations ultimately will lead to better predictions for space weather because the evolution of the magnetic field in the solar atmosphere drives all solar eruptions. These eruptions can reach Earth's atmosphere and affect operations of Earth-orbiting communication and navigation satellites.
The images were made possible by a set of innovations on Hi-C's optics array. The telescope's mirrors were approximately 9 1/2 inches across. New techniques for grinding the optics and polishing the surfaces were developed for the mirrors. Scientists and engineers worked to complete alignment of the mirrors, maintaining optic spacing to within a few ten-thousandths of an inch.
"The Hi-C observations are part of a technology demonstration that will enable a future generation of telescopes to solve the fundamental questions concerning the heating of the solar atmosphere and the origins of space weather, "said Jeffrey Newmark, sounding rocket program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
Hi-C's resolution is about five times finer than the imaging instrument aboard NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) launched in February 2010 to study the sun and its dynamic behavior. The Hi-C images complement global sun observations continuously taken by SDO.
NASA's suborbital sounding rockets provide low-cost means to conduct space science and studies of Earth's upper atmosphere. The Hi-C mission cost about $5 million.
"This suborbital mission has given us a unique look into the workings of the sun addressing a major mystery in nature. Hi-C has demonstrated that high value science can be achieved on a small budget," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) in Washington. "NASA's sounding rocket program is a key training ground for the next generation of scientists, in addition to developing new space technologies."
Partners associated with the development of the Hi-C telescope include the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass.; L-3Com/Tinsley Laboratories in Richmond, Calif.; Lockheed Martin's Solar Astrophysical Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.; the University of Central Lancashire in England; and the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built, operates and manages SDO for SMD.
To view the Hi-C images, visit:
More information about NASA's sounding rocket program, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/soundingrockets
For more information about SDO, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/sdo- end -
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23-Jan-2013
Nature
Space instrument adds big piece to the solar corona puzzle
How can the solar atmosphere get hotter, rather than colder, the farther you go from the sun's surface? This mystery has puzzled solar astronomers for decades. A suborbital rocket mission that launched in July 2012 has just provided a major piece of the puzzle.
Contact: Christine Pulliam
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Press Release
Release No.: 2013-03For Release: Wednesday, January 23, 2013 01:00:00 PM ESTSpace Instrument Adds Big Piece to the Solar Corona Puzzle
Cambridge, MA - The Sun's visible surface, or photosphere, is 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As you move outward from it, you pass through a tenuous layer of hot, ionized gas or plasma called the corona. The corona is familiar to anyone who has seen a total solar eclipse, since it glimmers ghostly white around the hidden Sun.
But how can the solar atmosphere get hotter, rather than colder, the farther you go from the Sun's surface? This mystery has puzzled solar astronomers for decades. A suborbital rocket mission that launched in July 2012 has just provided a major piece of the puzzle.
The High-resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, revealed one of the mechanisms that pumps energy into the corona, heating it to temperatures up to 7 million degrees F. The secret is a complex process known as magnetic reconnection.
"This is the first time we've had images at high enough resolution to directly observe magnetic reconnection," explained Smithsonian astronomer Leon Golub (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics). "We can see details in the corona five times finer than any other instrument."
"Our team developed an exceptional instrument capable of revolutionary image resolution of the solar atmosphere. Due to the level of activity, we were able to clearly focus on an active sunspot, thereby obtaining some remarkable images," said heliophysicist Jonathan Cirtain (Marshall Space Flight Center).
Magnetic braids and loops
The Sun's activity, including solar flares and plasma eruptions, is powered by magnetic fields. Most people are familiar with the simple bar magnet, and how you can sprinkle iron filings around one to see its field looping from one end to the other. The Sun is much more complicated.
The Sun's surface is like a collection of thousand-mile-long magnets scattered around after bubbling up from inside the Sun. Magnetic fields poke out of one spot and loop around to another spot. Plasma flows along those fields, outlining them with glowing threads.
The images from Hi-C showed interweaved magnetic fields that were braided just like hair. When those braids relax and straighten, they release energy. Hi-C witnessed one such event during its flight.
It also detected an area where magnetic field lines crossed in an X, then straightened out as the fields reconnected. Minutes later, that spot erupted with a mini solar flare.
Hi-C showed that the Sun is dynamic, with magnetic fields constantly warping, twisting, and colliding in bursts of energy. Added together, those energy bursts can boost the temperature of the corona to 7 million degrees F when the Sun is particularly active.
Selecting the target
The telescope aboard Hi-C provided a resolution of 0.2 arcseconds - about the size of a dime seen from 10 miles away. That allowed astronomers to tease out details just 100 miles in size. (For comparison, the Sun is 865,000 miles in diameter.)
Hi-C photographed the Sun in ultraviolet light at a wavelength of 19.3 nanometers - 25 times shorter than wavelengths of visible light. That wavelength is blocked by Earth's atmosphere, so to observe it astronomers had to get above the atmosphere. The rocket's suborbital flight allowed Hi-C to collect data for just over 5 minutes before returning to Earth.
Hi-C could only view a portion of the Sun, so the team had to point it carefully. And since the Sun changes hourly, they had to select their target at the last minute - the day of the launch. They chose a region that promised to be particularly active.
"We looked at one of the largest and most complicated active regions I've ever seen on the Sun," said Golub. "We hoped that we would see something really new, and we weren't disappointed."
Next steps
Golub said that data from Hi-C continues to be analyzed for more insights. Researchers are hunting areas where other energy release processes were occurring.
In the future, the scientists hope to launch a satellite that could observe the Sun continuously at the same level of sharp detail.
"We learned so much in just five minutes. Imagine what we could learn by watching the Sun 24/7 with this telescope," said Golub.
This research is being published in the journal Nature in a paper co-authored by Cirtain, Golub, A. Winebarger (Marshall), B. De Pontieu (Lockheed Martin), K. Kobayashi (University of Alabama - Huntsville), R. Moore (Marshall), R. Walsh (University of Central Lancashire), K. Korreck, M. Weber and P. McCauley (CfA), A. Title (Lockheed Martin), S. Kuzin (Lebedev Physical Institute), and C. DeForest (Southwest Research Institute).
Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.
For more information, contact:
David A. Aguilar
Director of Public Affairs
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7462
daguilar@cfa.harvard.edu
Christine Pulliam
Public Affairs Specialist
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
617-495-7463
cpulliam@cfa.harvard.edu
Press Release
Release No.: 2013-03For Release: Wednesday, January 23, 2013
This is one of the highest-resolution images ever taken of the solar corona, or outer atmosphere. It was captured by NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, in the ultraviolet wavelength of 19.3 nanometers. Hi-C showed that the Sun is dynamic, with magnetic fields constantly warping, twisting, and colliding in bursts of energy. Added together, those energy bursts can boost the temperature of the corona to 7 million degrees Fahrenheit when the Sun is particularly active.
Credit: NASA
High Resolution Image (jpg)
Low Resolution Image (jpg)
Hi-C found interweaved magnetic fields that were braided just like hair. When those braids relax and straighten, they release energy. Hi-C witnessed one such event during its flight, shown in this time series.
Credit: NASA
Low Resolution Image (jpg)
Hi-C also detected an area where magnetic field lines crossed in an X, then straightened out as the fields reconnected. Minutes later, that spot erupted with a mini solar flare. Images of the same location taken with the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory show the superior resolution of Hi-C.
Credit: NASA
Low Resolution Image (jpg)
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How NASA Revealed Sun's Hottest Secret in 5-Minute Spaceflight
by Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor
23 January 2013 Time: 03:08 PM ET
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The High resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) was launched on a NASA Black Brant IX two-stage rocket from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico July 11, 2012. The experiment reached a maximum velocity of Mach 7 and max altitude of 264 km. The experiment collected 345 seconds of EUV science images. Image released Jan. 23, 2013. View full size image |
Designed to observe the hottest part of the sun — its corona — the small High-Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) launched on a suborbital rocket that fell back to Earth without circling the planet even once. The experiment revealed never-before-seen "magnetic braids" of plasma roiling in the sun's outer layers, NASA announced today (Jan. 23)
The Hi-C instrument on the integration table at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Image released Jan. 23, 2013.
CREDIT: NASA/MSFC
View full size image
The solar telescope snapped a total of 165 photos during its mission, which lasted 10 minutes from launch to its parachute landing.
Hi-C launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico atop a sounding rocket in July 2012. The mission cost a total of $5 million — a relative bargain for a NASA space mission, scientists said. The experiment was part of NASA's Sounding Rocket Program, which launches about 20 unmanned suborbital research projects every year. [NASA's Hi-C Photos: Best View Ever of Sun's Corona]
"This mission exemplifies the three pillars of the [sounding rocket] program: world-class science, a breakthrough technology demonstration, and the training of the next generation of space scientists," said Jeff Newmark, a Sounding Rocket Program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
NASA's High-resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) capture over 50 16-Megapixel images of the 1.5 million-degree solar corona. The large image is the full frame image and the smaller images along the top and sides are sub fields of the image. The upper left corner image is from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the box in this image shows the Hi-C field of view. Released Jan. 23, 2013.
CREDIT: Dr. Amy Winebarger, MSFC/NASA
View full size image
While NASA already has telescopes in orbit constantly monitoring the whole surface of the sun, such as the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the Hi-C mission allowed scientists to focus in on a smaller region than SDO is able to.
"SDO has a global view of the sun," Newmark said. "What this research does is act like a microscope and it zooms in on the real fine structure that's never been seen before."
The next step, the researchers said, is to design a follow-up instrument to take advantage of the new telescope technology tested out by Hi-C, to observe for a longer period of time on an orbital mission.
"Now we've proven it exists, so now we can go study it," said Karel Schrijver, a senior fellow at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto, Calif., where the instrument was built.
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NASA solves 30-year solar puzzle with 5 minutes and $5 million
By Joseph Serna
January 23, 2013, 1:49 p.m.Using photos from the High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) that was flung into space in July, scientists observed small bands of magnetism near the star's surface twist, turn and braid together before snapping apart, releasing heat and energy flares that heated up the star's atmosphere. NASA officials described their findings Wednesday.
The sun's surface is a relatively cool 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit while its atmosphere, or corona, is between 2 million and 4 million degrees. The disparity has long puzzled scientists who study our nearest star.
With a $5-million budget, scientists designed, built and launched a 464-pound, 10-foot telescope into space from White Sands, N.M., in July. The telescope was outside of the atmosphere for only five minutes before it returned to Earth. But in those few minutes, the telescope took high-resolution images of the corona, revealing what the sun's magnetic fields were doing on a local scale. NASA scientists likened that to taking a high-resolution photo of a dime from 10 miles away.
The images showed how the relatively small magnetic fields braid together into unbearable tension, then snap apart in flares that can be as hot as 7 million degrees. The images supported a theory first introduced in 1983 by American astrophysicist Eugene Parker that small solar flares were heating up the sun's outer most layer.
"Sometimes this small-scale process stalls, extra stress builds up, and then the relaxation happens on a much larger scale, causing a flare or coronal mass ejection," said Karel Schrijver, who worked on the mission and is a senior fellow at Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in Palo Alto.
A coronal mass ejection is a violent, massive burst of gas and magnetic fields from the sun. When the explosions are aimed toward Earth, they have been known to knock out power grids and damage satellites. But they can also bring on some pretty sweet northern lights, or Aurora Borealis.
"The flaring on the small scales and on the large scales all happen together," Schrijver said. "To understand why the solar corona behaves as it does, we need to see both the small and the large to understand how they connect, and ultimately drive space weather."
Hi-C is part of NASA's Low Cost Access to Space Program, which uses smaller-scale missions for science investigations, to test future technologies and train upcoming researchers students and engineers. The photos were shot near the peak of the sun's 11-year cycle, offering scientists their best shot at photographing its smallest flares, researchers said.
Joseph.serna@latimes.com
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