NASA's IRIS Telescope Offers First Glimpse of Sun's
Mysterious Atmosphere
These two images show a section of the sun as seen
by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, on the right and
NASA's SDO on the left. The IRIS image provides scientists with unprecedented
detail of the lowest parts of the sun's atmosphere, known as the interface
region.
Image Credit: NASA/SDO/IRIS
The moment when a telescope first opens its doors represents the culmination
of years of work and planning -- while simultaneously laying the groundwork for
a wealth of research and answers yet to come. It is a moment of excitement and
perhaps even a little uncertainty. On July 17, 2013, the international team of
scientists and engineers who supported and built NASA's Interface Region Imaging
Spectrograph, or IRIS, all lived through that moment. As the spacecraft orbited
around Earth, the door of the telescope opened to view the mysterious lowest
layers of the sun's atmosphere and the results thus far are nothing short of
amazing. The data is crisp and clear, showing unprecedented detail of this
little-observed region.
"These beautiful images from IRIS are going to help us understand how the
sun's lower atmosphere might power a host of events around the sun," said Adrian
Daw, the mission scientist for IRIS at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Md. "Anytime you look at something in more detail than has ever been
seen before, it opens up new doors to understanding. There's always that
potential element of surprise."
As the telescope door opened on July 17, 2013, IRIS’s single instrument began
to observe the sun in exceptional detail. IRIS’s first images showed a multitude
of thin, fibril-like structures that have never been seen before, revealing
enormous contrasts in density and temperature occur throughout this region even
between neighboring loops that are only a few hundred miles apart. The images
also show spots that rapidly brighten and dim, which provide clues to how energy
is transported and absorbed throughout the region.
The IRIS images of fine structure in the interface region will help
scientists track how magnetic energy contributes to heating in the sun’s
atmosphere. Scientists need to observe the region in exquisite detail, because
the energy flowing through it powers the upper layer of the sun’s atmosphere,
the corona, to temperatures greater than 1 million kelvins (about 1.8 million
F), almost a thousand times hotter than the sun's surface itself.
IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer mission that launched from Vandenberg Air Force
Base, Calif., on June 27, 2013. IRIS's capabilities are uniquely tailored to
unravel the interface region. Understanding the interface region is important
because it forms the ultraviolet emission that impacts near-Earth space and
Earth’s climate. Energy traveling through the region also helps drive the solar
wind, which during extreme space weather events near Earth can affect
satellites, power grids, and global positioning systems, or GPS.
Designed to research the interface region in more detail than has ever been
done before, IRIS's instrument is a combination of an ultraviolet telescope and
what's called a spectrograph. Light from the telescope is split into two
components. The first provides high-resolution images, capturing data on about
one percent of the sun at a time. While these are relatively small snapshots,
the images can resolve very fine features, as small as 150 miles across.
While the images are of one wavelength of light at a time, the second
component is the spectrograph that provides information about many wavelengths
of light at once. The instrument splits the sun's light into its various
wavelengths and measures how much of any given wavelength is present. This
information is then portrayed on a graph showing spectral "lines." Taller lines
correspond to wavelengths in which the sun emits relatively more light. Analysis
of the spectral lines can also provide velocity, temperature and density, key
information when trying to track how energy and heat moves through the
region.
"The quality of images and spectra we are receiving from IRIS is amazing.
This is just what we were hoping for," said Alan Title, IRIS principal
investigator at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center Solar and
Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif. "There is much work ahead to
understand what we're seeing, but the quality of the data will enable us to do
that."
Not only does IRIS provide state-of-the-art observations to look at the
interface region, it makes uses of advanced computing to help interpret what it
sees. Indeed, interpreting the light flowing out of the interface region could
not be done well prior to the advent of today's supercomputers because, in this
area of the sun, the transfer and conversion of energy from one form to another
is not understood.
The IRIS mission has long-term implications for understanding the genesis of
space weather near Earth. Understanding how energy and solar material move
through the interface region could help scientists improve forecasts for the
kinds of events that can disrupt Earth technologies.
The IRIS Observatory was designed and the mission managed by Lockheed Martin.
The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., built the
telescope. Montana State University in Bozeman, Mont. designed the spectrograph.
NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., provides mission
operations and ground data systems. Goddard manages the Small Explorer Program
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. The Norwegian Space
Centre is providing regular downlinks of science data. Other contributors
include the University of Oslo in Norway and Stanford University in Stanford,
Calif.
For more information about the IRIS mission, visit:
Karen C. Fox
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA Invites Media to Space Station Astronaut-Robot Test
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- An astronaut aboard the International Space Station
will control NASA's K10 planetary rover at the agency's Ames Research Center in
Moffett Field, Calif., from 8-11 a.m. PDT Friday, July 26, and media are invited
to watch.
The event, the second in a series of surface telerobotics tests to examine how astronauts in space can remotely operate a robot on the ground, will take place at Ames' Roverscape, an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields. Journalists will see the robot deploying an antenna under the interactive, remote control of an astronaut orbiting hundreds of miles overhead and tour the Roverscape as ground controllers assist the astronaut during the deployment. Senior managers, students and engineers supporting the work in Ames' Intelligent Robotics Group will be available for interviews.
Surface telerobotics is part of NASA's Human Exploration Telerobotics Project, which uses the International Space Station to test new remotely operated robots, modes of control, and operational concepts.
The primary objective of the K10 rover project is to understand how advanced, remotely operated robots can improve astronaut safety, enhance science activities and increase mission success while also reducing the cost, risk and use of consumables, such as fuel and oxygen, during future exploration missions.
The K10 robot stands about 4.5 feet tall, weighs about 220 pounds. It drives and steers with four wheels and can travel about three feet per second, a little slower than the average person walks. For the surface telerobotics tests, K10 is equipped with multiple cameras and a 3-D scanning laser system to perform survey work, as well as a mechanism to deploy the simulated radio antenna.
The surface telerobotics tests simulate a possible future mission involving astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft traveling to the L2 Earth-moon Lagrange point 40,000 miles above the far side of the moon. L2 is the point in space where the gravity of Earth and the moon are balanced so that a spacecraft easily can maintain a stationary orbit. From such a location, astronauts could operate a robot remotely to perform surface science work, such as deploying a radio telescope. This mission concept was developed by the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Reporters who are U.S. citizens may participate in the event by contacting Rachel Hoover at rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
or 650-930-6149 by 5 p.m. Thursday, July 25.
For information about Ames and directions to the center, visit:
For more about the International Space Station and its crew, visit:
For information about the Human Exploration Telerobotics project, visit:
For more information about the K10 robot, visit:
The event, the second in a series of surface telerobotics tests to examine how astronauts in space can remotely operate a robot on the ground, will take place at Ames' Roverscape, an outdoor robotic test area the size of two football fields. Journalists will see the robot deploying an antenna under the interactive, remote control of an astronaut orbiting hundreds of miles overhead and tour the Roverscape as ground controllers assist the astronaut during the deployment. Senior managers, students and engineers supporting the work in Ames' Intelligent Robotics Group will be available for interviews.
Surface telerobotics is part of NASA's Human Exploration Telerobotics Project, which uses the International Space Station to test new remotely operated robots, modes of control, and operational concepts.
The primary objective of the K10 rover project is to understand how advanced, remotely operated robots can improve astronaut safety, enhance science activities and increase mission success while also reducing the cost, risk and use of consumables, such as fuel and oxygen, during future exploration missions.
The K10 robot stands about 4.5 feet tall, weighs about 220 pounds. It drives and steers with four wheels and can travel about three feet per second, a little slower than the average person walks. For the surface telerobotics tests, K10 is equipped with multiple cameras and a 3-D scanning laser system to perform survey work, as well as a mechanism to deploy the simulated radio antenna.
The surface telerobotics tests simulate a possible future mission involving astronauts aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft traveling to the L2 Earth-moon Lagrange point 40,000 miles above the far side of the moon. L2 is the point in space where the gravity of Earth and the moon are balanced so that a spacecraft easily can maintain a stationary orbit. From such a location, astronauts could operate a robot remotely to perform surface science work, such as deploying a radio telescope. This mission concept was developed by the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Reporters who are U.S. citizens may participate in the event by contacting Rachel Hoover at rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
or 650-930-6149 by 5 p.m. Thursday, July 25.
For information about Ames and directions to the center, visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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