Solar Probe Films Plasma Loops, Sunspots in Action

brian0918 writes "NewScientist reports that Japan's Hinode (Solar-B) spacecraft has captured videos of surface details of the Sun, including the development of loops of hot plasma above the surface, and activity around sunspots. From the article: 'It is hoped that its observations will shed light on what triggers solar eruptions — called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These ejections spew out radiation that poses a health risk for astronauts, and they can also knock out satellites. The mission team is still testing out the spacecraft's instruments, but full scientific observations will probably be underway by January 2007.' More videos can be viewed at NASA's site."

Comments

It has to be asked...

[cbhacking]

We already know about the malicious spirits in the sun that shoot balls of plasma at us. The question is, what keeps them from knocking out this spy with a well-aimed CME?*

*The second question is at least half-serious.

Re:It has to be asked...

[W2IRT]

We already know about the malicious spirits in the sun that shoot balls of plasma at us
Malicious spirits you say? Or perhaps Malicious sprites? I'll have to run this one by Sunspot Louie and The Old Timer.

Everybody, even the QRPers down the hill, knows that Sunspots are whipped up by the Palos Verdes Sundancers every 11 years http://www.geocities.com/k2cddx/sundancers.html. At the bottom of the cycle their leader, Solar Max hauls out the Big Bass Bongo, BIG DX, and so begins the whirling machinations that bring about the arrival of the next sunspot peak, which, as you know, charges the ionosphere sufficiently to allow HF radio signals to be refracted back to earth thousands of miles from their source. CMEs, however, are the flies in that ointment.

We never did consider the source of the CMEs, Type II sweeps, X-10 class flares with all the trimmings, etc. they were just part of the Eternal Enigmas and the Mysteries of the Ages. Malicious sprites indeed. We will have to give this some more thought!

Be a believer! The Golden Days of DXing are at hand; the signs are everywhere. Soon there will be DX for all, although more for some than others. DX IS!


(no, I'm not off my nut. This post is an homage to the late Hugh Cassidy, WA6AUD, and his wonderful DX Stories in the West Coast DX bulletin (and later by Paul Dunphy, VE1DX). If you're into some fun ham radio lore, check 'em out at http://www.geocities.com/k2cddx/dxstories.html. Thanks, Cass!)

shed light

[Swimport]

Why would you want to shed light on the sun?

oddly beautiful

[Anonymous Coward]

oddly beautiful .mpg of plasma arcing...

higher res, different wavelengths

[oneiros27]

Hinode (SOLAR-B) is in may ways an upgrade to the previous Yohkoh (SOLAR-A) mission.

The main difference is that Hinode uses 4 megapixel cameras over the 1 megapixel cameras flown in other space-based solar observatories. (note -- ground based solar observatories have higher resolutiion cameras, but they can't observe these frequencies as x-rays can't make it past the atmosphere. (RHESSI observes in hard x-ray, but it's not a full-disk imager. SXI on GOES is full disk, but it's on soft x-ray)

Now, a couple of weeks after Hinode launched, STEREO also launched -- which is not only 4 megapixel cameras, but two observatories, and besides Ulysses, the first (two) solar observatories not in the sun-earth line. (I'm not a solar physicist, so I don't know what sort of instrumentation package Ulysses carried. Due to the flight path not staying a constant distance from the sun, and because our group doesn't track it*, I can only assume it's insitu and not remote sensing). The more impressive solar observatory will be the Solar Dynamics Observatory, aka SDO.

The reason that SDO is impressive, even though it's in the sun-earth line and isn't as useful as STEREO for solar weather, is that it will be flying 16 megapixel cameras. Because it will be in an inclined geosyncronous orbit, it will have its own ground station for constant data transfer at a full data rate without making use of the Deep Space Network. This allows it to not only send larger pictures, but more of them -- AIA will be taking images every 10 seconds. No space based solar observatory even comes close to that sort of a data rate. (STEREO is estimated at 1.5GB/day, while SDO will be 1TB/day)

* By 'our group', I'm referring to the Virtual Solar Observatory, for which I'm a programmer.
** Please be aware that these are the things that I hear in passing while doing my job. Although I think I'm right on all of this, it wouldn't hurt to get a second source that actually is a solar physicist and deals with the instruments directly.