A
physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has
helped NASA scientists observe a “hidden” layer of the Sun where violent space
weather can originate, by positioning a crucial UV sensor inside a space-borne
instrument.
The
Sun releases particles and electromagnetic fields into space and when these
particles pass through the Sun’s “transition region,” 5,000 kilometres above
the surface, they can gather considerable steam, resulting in violent episodes
of “space weather”.
The
space weather can damage Earth-orbiting satellites and disrupt electronic
communications.
To
avoid this, a team at NASA Marshall Space Flight
Center in Huntsville
The
optics in SUMI break down the incoming UV light into a spectrum of individual
wavelengths and fans them out, much as a prism fans out white light into a
rainbow.
“The
problem is that SUMI’s detectors are small, so they don’t capture a wide range
of wavelengths,” said NIST physicist Joseph Reader.
The
solution is to get a light source that can produce these same lines in the
laboratory,” he said, and use them to properly adjust the instrument’s sensors.
That’s
where NIST’s unique “sliding spark source comes into the picture.
It
consists of a pair of graphite electrodes with a quartz surface in between. A
spark from these electrodes glides along the quartz surface, controllably
producing the desired wavelengths of UV light from ionized carbon. Inside a
clean room in Huntsville
On
July 30, 2010, SUMI was successfully launched from White Sands, N.M. It
rocketed 320 km in space and observed sunspot 11092 for about 6 minutes before
parachuting back to earth. The Huntsville
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