‘Never been seen before’: First images from new ISS solar telescope reveal subtle ‘fluctuations’ in sun’s outer atmosphere
A mini solar telescope attached to the side of the International Space Station (ISS) captured its first images, revealing subtle changes in the external atmosphere of our star of our Home Star which has never been seen before.
NASA coronal diagnostic experience (MANUSCRIPT) is a small solar telescope attached outside the ISS. It is a coronagraph, which means that it blocks the solar disc to allow the telescope to focus on the atmosphere of the sun, or Corona, in unprecedented details – imitating the way the moon blocks the visible surface of the sun during a total solar eclipse on earth. The occupying disc blocking sunlight is around the size of a tennis ball and it is held in place by three metal arms at the end of a long metal tube, which also projects distinctive shadows in the resulting images.
Codex arrived on the ISS on November 5, 2024, aboard a Cargaison Spacex cargo capsule, Sister Sister of Science Live Science Space.com previously reported. It was affixed to the station’s hull by the robotic arm, Canadarm2, November 9, according to Nasa.
The first photos of Codex were published on June 10 during the 246th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Anchorage, Alaska. They include temperature fluctuations images in the outer crown, captured on the grip of several days, and a photo of giant “coronal banners” which shoot out of the sun.
“The Codex instrument does something new,” Jeffrey NewmarkA Heliophysicist of the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Maryland and the main codex investigator, said in a statement. “These are new observations that have never been seen before, and we think there are a lot of science really interesting to do with it.”
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The main objective of the new telescope is to discover how superhot particles constantly strengthen the sun, known as solar wind, interact with the exterior atmosphere of the sun. “Previous experiments of coronagrapher have measured the density of the material in the crown, but the codex measures the temperature and speed of the material in the solar wind slowly varying from the sun,” said Newmark.
Scientists in the mission also want to understand how solar wind is heated to such high temperatures – up to 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), which is about 175 times warmer than the surface of the sun, according to Space.com.
To do this, the telescope measures the sun using four narrow strip filters, two for temperature and two for speed. “By comparing the brightness of the images in each of these filters, we can say the temperature and speed of the solar coronal wind,” said Newmark.
The researchers hope that a better understanding of the solar wind will help predict the weather events of the dangerous space, in particular those which come from the gigantic “coronal holes” which Spit streams of solar particles particularly rapid towards the earth.
In the past few weeks, the earth has experienced two significant geomagnetic storms, which have both been triggered by coronal holes: first, on June 13, when an important storm triggered dawn in a maximum of 18 American states; And more recently on June 25, when a slightly lower disturbance briefly lit the night sky.
This wave of activity is the result of solarThe most active phase of the solar spots cycle, about 11 years old from the sun. This chaotic peak is now Probably tending to an endThis means less explosive explosions in the future. However, some experts believe that the solar wind could remain unpredictable for several years such as the The localized magnetic fields of the sun are competing for domination In a period nicknamed the “solar battle zone”. Therefore, the Codex instrument probably turned on the optimal moment.
“We have never really had the ability to do this kind of science before,” said Newmark. “We are delighted with what will happen.”
