NASA to Explore "Secret Layer" of the Sun

Next April, for a grand total of 8 minutes, NASA astronomers are going to glimpse a secret layer of the sun.

Researchers call it "the transition region." It is a place in the sun's atmosphere, about 5000 km above the stellar surface, where magnetic fields overwhelm the pressure of matter and seize control of the sun's gases. It's where solar flares explode, where coronal mass ejections begin their journey to Earth, where the solar wind is mysteriously accelerated to a million mph.

It is, in short, the birthplace of space weather.

science.nasa.gov...

Launching of a telescope from White Sands, New Mexico next year is set to study sunspots origin. A mission like this has never been tried:

By measuring the gap, astronomers estimate the strength of the sunspot's magnetic field.

This trick has been applied to thousands of sunspots on the solar surface, but never to the transition region just a short distance above.

Why not?

"Just bad luck, really," says Cirtain. "Gas in the transition region doesn't produce many strong spectral lines that we can see at visible wavelengths." It does, however, produce lines at UV wavelengths invisible from Earth's surface.

"That's why we have to leave Earth."

SUMI will blast off inside the nose cone of a Black Brant rocket on a sub-orbital flight that takes it to an altitude of 300 km. "We'll be above more than 99.99% of Earth's atmosphere," says Cirtain. About 68 seconds into the flight, payload doors will open, affording SUMI a crystal-clear view of the UV sun. "From that moment, we've only got 8 minutes to work with. We'll target an active region and start taking data."

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[edit on 8-9-2008 by Jbird]

For some reason... and maybe I'm just crazy... I don't believe a damn thing an agency founded by nazi scientists says, especially when they let drunk people fly space ships.

Originally posted by dunwichwitch
For some reason... and maybe I'm just crazy... I don't believe a damn thing an agency founded by nazi scientists says, especially when they let drunk people fly space ships.

Yeah im with you on that.
However some things they say are true its just the things surrounding controversial topics they lie through there teeth about.
In reality who ever truly knows wtf they are launching or doing.

Are they hoping to discover anything specifically in this 'birthplace of space weather'?

Originally posted by dunwichwitch
For some reason... and maybe I'm just crazy... I don't believe a damn thing an agency founded by nazi scientists says, especially when they let drunk people fly space ships.

Silly goose! Nasa wasnt founded by Nazi scientists! it was founded by blue skinned elder things from the antarctic! Also those guys who fly their space ships arent drunk, the are stoned... but other than that ... right on!

Originally posted by Lucid Lunacy

Are they hoping to discover anything specifically in this 'birthplace of space weather'?

Nope, cos they ain't looking or it, lol, not officially anyway.

"It's where solar flares explode, where coronal mass ejections begin their journey to Earth, where the solar wind is mysteriously accelerated to a million mph.

It is, in short, the birthplace of space weather."

This is what annoys me about MSS atm, they have been shown what this 'could be' by plasma cosmology, aswell as most of the other major problems with the current model, but they say it's rediculous. It may not be right, but it's a damn sight closer than we are atm, IMO.

EMM

OK , folks. Let's stay on Topic, please !


This isn't the 'Give your opinion of NASA' thread.


Please try to keep the discussion on the SUMI Mission.


TIA