NASA joins two Japan-led missions to study the sun’s atmosphere, solar wind and auroras – technology news, Firstpost – Bestgamingpro
Trends of FPJan 11 2021, 2:30:08 PM India Standard Time
NASA has approved two heliophysics missions to explore the Sun, led by the Japanese Space Agency. Aside from studying the various phenomena related to the sun’s atmosphere, the missions will monitor the systems driving space weather near Earth. It is scheduled to launch missions in 2026. According to Prof. statement By NASA, the Epsilon High-Throughput Ultraviolet Spectroscopy (EUVUST) and Electroject Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission will help scientists understand the Sun and Earth as an interconnected system. Scientists believe that understanding the physics that drives solar winds and solar flares could help them in the future predict events, which in turn could affect human technology as well as explorers in space.
The EUVST Epsilon mission is led by the Japan Space Exploration Agency (JAXA), in partnership with other international organizations. The EUVST, targeted since its launch in 2026, is a solar telescope that will study how the sun’s atmosphere sparks solar winds and triggers an eruption of solar material.
Aurora australis, or the southern lights. The Russian crew ship Soyuz MS-12 is in the foreground and the resupply vessel Progress 72 in the background. Image: NASA
NASA hardware contributions to the mission include a UV-detector condenser and electronics support, spectrophotometer components, a pointing telescope, software and a sliding jaw imaging system to provide context for the spectroscopy. NASA’s budget for the mission is $ 55 million. Principal investigator on NASA’s contribution to EUVST is Harry Warren at the United States Naval Research Laboratory in Washington.
In turn, EZIE will study electrical currents in the Earth’s atmosphere that link auroras with the Earth’s magnetosphere. The total budget for the EZIE mission is $ 53.3 million while the lead investigator for the mission is Jeng-Hwa (Sam) Yee at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.
Speaking about the new missions, Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Director of Science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said that they are happy to add the new missions to the growing fleet of satellites studying the Sun-Earth system, adding that he is especially excited to follow the success of the Yukcock and Hinode Energy Science missions. Solar.
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