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March
21, 2007: It's enough to make you leap out of your
seat: A magnetic vortex almost as big as Earth races across
your computer screen, twisting, turning, finally erupting
in a powerful solar flare. Japan's
Hinode spacecraft recorded just such a blast on Jan. 12, 2007.
Click on the image to see the movie:
Above:
A solar flare in the chromosphere, recorded by JAXA's Hinode
spacecraft on Jan. 12, 2007. Movies: #1,
#2.
"I
managed to stay in my seat," says solar physicist John
Davis of the Marshall Space Flight Center, "but just
barely."
Davis
is NASA's project scientist for Hinode, Japanese for Sunrise.
The spacecraft was launched in Sept. 2006 from the Uchinoura
Space Center in Japan on a mission to study sunspots and solar
flares. Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope, which some astronomers
liken to "a Hubble for the Sun," produces crystal-clear
images with 0.2 arc-second resolution. (Comparison: 0.2 arc-second
is a tiny angle approximately equal to the width of a human
hair held about 100 meters away.) "We're getting movies
like these all the time now," he says.
This
particular movie is visually stunning, but the most amazing
thing about it, notes Davis, is where the scene unfolded--in
the sun's chromosphere. "We used to think the chromosphere
was a fairly uneventful place, but Hinode is shattering those
misconceptions."
 Chromosphere
means "sphere of color." It's the name astronomers
of the 19th century gave to a narrow and very red layer of
the sun's atmosphere they saw peeking over the edge of the
Moon during solar eclipses. The color comes from the chromosphere's
abundant hydrogen which emits light at a wavelength of 6563
Angstroms, also known as "hydrogen alpha" light.
Hinode's telescope is equipped with filters tuned to this
specific color.
Right:
The chromosphere, viewed the old-fashioned way during a solar
eclipse. Photo credit: Vic and Jen Winter. [More]
The
view from space is impressive. Visually, the chromosphere
resembles a shag
carpet with threads of magnetism jutting up from the floor
below. Hinode's movies show the threads swaying back and forth
as if blown by a gentle breeze. There is nothing gentle, however,
about "spicules" shooting into the chromosphere
from the underlying photosphere. "These are jets of gas
as big as Texas," says Davis. "They rise and fall
on time scales of 10 minutes."
And
then there are the explosions. "The fact that Hinode
is able to observe solar flares taking place in the chromosphere
is very important," he says.
The
origin of solar flares is a mystery. Researchers have long
known that flares develop from magnetic instabilities near
sunspots, but even after centuries of studying sunspots, no
one can predict exactly when a flare is about to happen. This
is a problem for NASA because astronauts in space are vulnerable
to intense radiation and high-energy particles produced by
the explosions. An accurate system of forecasting would help
explorers stay out of harm's way.
Hinode
may be looking right into the genesis zone of flares. If so,
"it could teach us how flares work and improve our ability
to predict them."
Meanwhile,
hang on and enjoy
the show.
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Author: Dr.
Tony Phillips | Production Editor:
Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA
| More
Information |
Hinode
home page at nasa.gov
National
Astronomical Observatory of Japan -- Hinode Project
page
Hinode
credits: Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
(JAXA), Hinode is a collaborative mission that also includes
the space agencies of the United States, Great Britain
and Europe. Its three primary instruments – the Solar
Optical Telescope, the X-ray Telescope and the Extreme
Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer – are observing the different
layers of the solar atmosphere ranging from the sun’s
visible surface to the corona, the outer atmosphere that
extends outward into the solar system. The movies highlighted
in this story come from the Solar Optical Telescope developed
by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Tokyo
with focal plane instruments provided by the Lockheed
Martin Advanced Technology Center of Palo Alto, Calif.
First
Light for Hinode -- (Science@NASA)
X-ray
Transit of Mercury -- (Science@NASA)
Japan
Aerospace Exploration Agency -- (JAXA) Learn more
about JAXA's involvement with Hinode.
NASA's
Future: The
Vision for Space Exploration
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