OrbitalHub

Wikipedia dicit:

The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a planned Sun-observing satellite, under development by the European Space Agency (ESA). SolO is intended to perform detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and nascent solar wind, and perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun, which is difficult to do from Earth, both serving to answer the question “How does the Sun create and control the heliosphere?”

The science payload is composed of 10 instruments:

Heliospheric in-situ instruments

Solar Wind Analyser (SWA): To measure solar wind properties and composition; Energetic Particle Detector (EPD): To measure suprathermal ions, electrons, neutral atoms, as well as energetic particles in the energy range from few keV/nuc to relativistic electrons and ions up to 100 MeV (protons) and 200 MeV/nuc (heavy ions); Magnetometer (MAG): it will provide detailed measurements of the magnetic field; Radio and Plasma Wave analyser (RPW): To measure magnetic and electric fields at high time resolution.

Solar remote-sensing instruments

PHI: Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (Germany): To provide high-resolution and full-disc measurements of the photospheric vector magnetic field and line-of-sight (LOS) velocity as well as the continuum intensity in the visible wavelength range; EUI – Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (Belgium): To provide image sequences of the solar atmospheric layers above the photosphere, thereby providing an indispensable link between the solar surface and outer corona that ultimately shapes the characteristics of the interplanetary medium; SPICE – Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (France): To perform extreme ultraviolet imaging spectroscopy to remotely characterize plasma properties of the Sun’s on-disc corona; STIX – Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (Switzerland): To provides imaging spectroscopy of solar thermal and non-thermal X-ray emission from 4 to 150 keV; METIS – Coronagraph (Italy): To simultaneously image the visible, ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet emission of the solar corona and diagnose, with unprecedented temporal coverage and spatial resolution, the structure and dynamics of the full corona in the range from 1.4 to 3.0 (from 1.7 to 4.1) solar radii from Sun centre, at minimum (maximum) perihelion during the nominal mission; SoloHI – Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (United States): To image both the quasi-steady flow and transient disturbances in the solar wind over a wide field of view by observing visible sunlight scattered by solar wind electrons.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Genna Duberstein (ADNET): Lead Producer/Maria-Jose Vinas Garcia (Telophase): Translator/Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Technical Support/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Technical Support/Animation by ESA/ATG Medialab

Wikipedia dicit:

The Solar Orbiter (SolO) is a planned Sun-observing satellite, under development by the European Space Agency (ESA). SolO is intended to perform detailed measurements of the inner heliosphere and nascent solar wind, and perform close observations of the polar regions of the Sun, which is difficult to do from Earth, both serving to answer the question “How does the Sun create and control the heliosphere?”

SolO will make observations of the Sun from an eccentric orbit moving as close as ~60 solar radii (RS), or 0.284 astronomical units (au), placing it inside Mercury’s perihelion of 0.3075 au. During the planned 7-year mission the orbital inclination will be raised to about 25°.

The spacecraft will make a close approach to the Sun every five months. The closest approach will be positioned to allow a repeated study of the same region of the solar atmosphere. Solar Orbiter will be able to observe the magnetic activity building up in the atmosphere that can lead to powerful solar flares or eruptions.

Researchers will also have the chance to coordinate observations with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission (2018-2025) which is performing measurements of the Sun’s extended corona.

The objective of the mission is to perform close-up, high-resolution studies of the Sun and its inner heliosphere. The new understanding will help answer these questions:

How and where do the solar wind plasma and magnetic field originate in the corona?

How do solar transients drive heliospheric variability?

How do solar eruptions produce energetic particle radiation that fills the heliosphere?

How does the solar dynamo work and drive connections between the Sun and the heliosphere?

 

Video credit: United Launch Alliance

NASA dicit:

A new spacecraft is journeying to the Sun to snap the first pictures of the Sun’s north and south poles. Solar Orbiter, a collaboration between ESA and NASA will have its first opportunity to launch from Cape Canaveral on February 7, 2020. Launching on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, the spacecraft will use Venus’ and Earth’s gravity to swing itself out of the ecliptic plane — the swath of space, roughly aligned with the Sun’s equator, where all planets orbit. From there, Solar Orbiter’s bird’s eye view will give it the first-ever look at the Sun’s poles.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Holly Gilbert (NASA/GSFC): Scientist/Teresa Nieves-Chinchilla (Catholic University of America): Scientist/Chris St. Cyr (NASA/GSFC): Scientist/Joy Ng (USRA): Producer/Tom Bridgman (GST): Data Visualizer/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA): Animator/Chris Smith (USRA): Animator/Joy Ng (USRA): Animator/Lisa Poje (USRA): Animator/Krystofer Kim (USRA): Animator/Brian Monroe (USRA): Animator/Miles S. Hatfield (Telophase): Writer

NASA dicit:

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface. Scientists confirmed the find, called TOI 700 d, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and have modeled the planet’s potential environments to help inform future observations.

TOI 700 is a small, cool M dwarf star located just over 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. It’s roughly 40 of the Sun’s mass and size and about half its surface temperature. The star appears in 11 of the 13 sectors TESS observed during the mission’s first year, and scientists caught multiple transits by its three planets.

The innermost planet, called TOI 700 b, is almost exactly Earth-size, is probably rocky and completes an orbit every 10 days. The middle planet, TOI 700 c, is 2.6 times larger than Earth — between the sizes of Earth and Neptune — orbits every 16 days and is likely a gas-dominated world. TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system and the only one in the habitable zone, measures 20 larger than Earth, orbits every 37 days and receives from its star 86% of the energy that the Sun provides to Earth. All of the planets are thought to be tidally locked to their star, which means they rotate once per orbit so that one side is constantly bathed in daylight.

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Lead Producer/Chris Smith (USRA): Lead Animator/Jeanette Kazmierczak (University of Maryland College Park): Lead Science Writer/Gabrielle Engelmann-Suissa (USRA): Scientist/Barb Mattson (University of Maryland College Park): Narrator/Geronimo Villanueva (Catholic University of America): Visualizer

NASA dicit:

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission has returned unprecedented data from near the Sun, culminating in new discoveries published on December 4, 2019, in the journal Nature. Among the findings are new understandings of how the Sun’s constant outflow of material, the solar wind, behaves. Seen near Earth — where it can interact with our planet’s natural magnetic field and cause space weather effects that interfere with technology — the solar wind appears to be a relatively uniform flow of plasma. But Parker Solar Probe’s observations reveal a complicated, active system not seen from Earth.

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Wikipedia dicit:

The Kepler space telescope is a retired space telescope launched by NASA to discover Earth-size planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched on March 7, 2009, into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbit. The principal investigator was William J. Borucki. After nine years of operation, the telescope’s reaction control system fuel was depleted, and NASA announced its retirement on October 30, 2018.

Designed to survey a portion of Earth’s region of the Milky Way to discover Earth-size exoplanets in or near habitable zones and estimate how many of the billions of stars in the Milky Way have such planets, Kepler’s sole scientific instrument is a photometer that continually monitored the brightness of approximately 150,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view. These data are transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by exoplanets that cross in front of their host star. Only planets whose orbits are seen edge-on from Earth can be detected. During its over nine and a half years of service, Kepler observed 530,506 stars and detected 2,662 planets.

Video Credit: Ethan Kruse/NASA Goddard