SAN FRANCISCO – Researchers can have rare opportunities over the subsequent 12 months to check solar flares and coronal mass ejections, observations that may lead to improved space weather forecasts.
In the course of the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse, NASA will gather data on the sun’s corona from instruments mounted on satellites, aircraft and sounding rockets.
“The moon is an ideal coronagraph,” Kelly Korreck, NASA eclipse program manager, said Dec. 11 on the American Geophysical Union conferenced here.
NASA researchers will compare computer models of the sun’s corona with imagery gathered through the eclipse from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the European Space Agency-NASA Solar Orbiter.
The assorted perspectives will give researchers a “3D understanding of the corona as well because you possibly can triangulate plenty of different structures that we see from Earth and in one other direction from the Solar Orbiter,” said Amir Caspi, Southwest Research Institute principal scientist.
As well as, NASA will gather multispectral coronal imagery from instruments sent aloft on a pair of WB-57F jets. And sounding rockets launched from Wallops Island, Virginia, will eject magnetometers, accelerometers and other instruments to watch the ionosphere.
“Now as a substitute of validating models with only one view, we are able to validate them with multiple views,” Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.
Parker’s Close Approach
Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe’s closest solar approach is ready for Dec. 24, 2024. At the moment, the probe will likely be 6.1 million kilometers from the sun’s surface. For comparison, Mercury is 58 million kilometers from the sun.
By traveling closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe could obtain observations that help explain perplexing solar activity.
“The solar corona by nature is so mysterious,” Raouafi said. “It’s over 300 times hotter than the solar surface. That is totally counterintuitive because from on a regular basis experience, if you happen to are getting away from the warmth source, it cools down.”
One other mystery is the flow of ions and electrons traveling greater than 3 million kilometers per hour from the sun.
“Where do they get the energy to be accelerated so fast?” Raouafi said.
Atmospheric Waves
Additional data related to space weather is being gathered by the NASA Atmospheric Waves Experiment. AWE traveled to the International Space Station in November aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket cargo resupply mission.
“Gravity waves that arise from tropospheric weather can grow in amplitude enormously due to decreasing density and may have enormous effects at high altitudes,” said Dave Fritts, vp of atmospheric research for GATS, an organization in Newport News, Virginia. Data gathered by AWE “will enable predictions of those waves propagating to very high altitudes,” he added.
At high altitudes, gravity waves could have “very essential impacts within the thermosphere, the ionosphere and the lower space weather environment,” Fritts said. “There’s even the potential that capabilities like this could contribute to predictive capabilities down the road.”