What Lies inside the Sun?

When a pond's surface is calm, you can see more clearly into its depths. As it turns out, the same is true for the sun.

Researchers are excited that the sun's surface is calmer now than it's been in almost a century. It's a rare opportunity — the first since the Space Age began — to peer more clearly into the sun's mysterious interior.

To take advantage of the opportunity, NASA is about to launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). SDO is expected to launch this year, as early as November 2009.

"That's perfect timing," says Dean Pesnell, a solar physicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The sun is experiencing a century-class solar minimum, offering the clearest possible views."

"SDO will actually see through the sun's surface," added Pesnell. "The process is a little like taking an ultrasound of a pregnant mother. You can see the baby right through the skin."

The sensor that performs this trick is called the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). It can sense acoustic waves moving through the sun, and turn those waves into a fairly clear image of the interior.

"There's a lot going on inside the sun that we don't understand," notes Todd Hoeksema, a solar physicist at Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif. where the HMI was built. "The Solar Dynamics Observatory is bound to deliver some big discoveries."

The biggest discovery of all would be the inner workings of the solar dynamo. Deep beneath the sun's visible surface, massive currents of electrically-charged gas (plasma) circulate in patterns that give rise to the sun's powerful magnetic field. Almost all solar activity from sunspots to solar flares is regulated by this inner dynamo.

"Understanding how the dynamo works is a holy grail for stellar physics," says Pesnell. "It is the key to forecasting solar activity and space weather."

The problem is these deep flows are hidden from view. The sun's surface is bright and opaque, so it is impossible to look through it. Instead, solar physicists study the sun's interior the same way that geologists look deep into the Earth—via seismology. Just as earthquakes trigger seismic waves that travel through the Earth, shifting mass in the sun sends pressure waves rippling through its interior. These p modes (p for pressure) bounce around inside the sun, causing the star to ring like an enormous bell. HMI detects the surface vibrations, which in turn can be analyzed to reveal the depths.

Sunspots can get in the way of the waves, distorting their times and frequencies, making it tricky to figure out what's really happening inside the complicated solar interior. That's why the current lack of sunspots is good for helioseismology.

"You have more sensitivity to what's happening deep in the sun when there's not as much interference from the surface," Hoeksema explains. At the peak of the solar cycle, sunspots are numerous. So far in 2009, the sun's surface has been free of sunspots about 80 percent of the time — the most tranquil it's been since 1913.

From a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above Earth's surface, SDO will observe helioseismic waves more precisely than ever before. The current gold standard for observing the sun is a satellite called the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, which maps helioseismic activity with mega-pixel resolution once every minute or so. HMI will up the ante to 16 megapixels every 45 seconds, resulting in a far more detailed view of the solar interior.

SDO will also improve on SOHO by beaming its torrent of raw data down to Earth unprocessed. Because of limited download bandwidth, SOHO performs some calculations while the data are still onboard the spacecraft. Only the results are beamed to scientists. Since SOHO was launched in 1995, scientists have since devised better ways to process the data and correct for errors. But there's no way they can apply these new techniques to SOHO imagery because the data have already been "crunched" by the time they leave the spacecraft.

To give scientists full access to its original data, SDO will have a continuous, 150 megabit per second download link. In comparison, most home high-speed internet connections are only 1 to 10 megabits per second.

Somewhere in all those p modes will be the telltale signs of solar jet streams, subsurface winds, proto-sunspots, and the solar dynamo itself — all "seen" with unprecedented clarity.

With the sun so calm, now is a great time to look.

Avalanche! The Incredible Data Stream of SDO

When NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) leaves Earth in November 2009 onboard an Atlas V rocket, the thunderous launch will trigger an avalanche.

Mission planners are bracing themselves -- not for rocks or snow, but an avalanche of data.

"SDO will beam back 150 million bits of data per second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. That’s almost 50 times more science data than any other mission in NASA history. "It's like downloading 500,000 iTunes a day."


SDO is on a mission to study the sun in unprecedented detail. Onboard telescopes will scrutinize sunspots and solar flares using more pixels and colors than any other observatory in the history of solar physics. And SDO will reveal the sun’s hidden secrets in a prodigious rush of pictures.

"SDO is going to send us images ten times better than high definition television," says Pesnell, the project scientist for the new mission. A typical HDTV screen has 720 by 1280 pixels; SDO's images will have almost four times that number in the horizontal direction and five times in the vertical. “The pixel count is comparable to an IMAX movie -- an IMAX filled with the raging sun, 24 hours a day."

Spatial resolution is only half the story, though. Previous missions have photographed the sun no faster than once every few minutes. SDO will shatter that record.

"We'll be getting IMAX-quality images every 10 seconds," says Pesnell. "We'll see every nuance of solar activity." Because these fast cadences have never been attempted before by an orbiting observatory, the potential for discovery is great.

To illustrate the effect this might have on solar physics, Pesnell recalls the 18th century photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who won a famous bet with racehorse owner Leland Stanford. In those days, horses were widely thought to keep at least one hoof on the ground even in full gallop. That's how it appeared to the human eye.

"But when Muybridge photographed horses using a new high-speed camera system, he discovered something surprising," says Pesnell. "Galloping horses spend part of the race completely airborne—all four feet are off the ground."

Pesnell anticipates similar surprises from high-speed photography of the sun. The images could upend mainstream ideas about sunspot genesis, what triggers solar flares, and how explosions ripple through the sun's atmosphere en route to Earth.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory has three main instruments. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) is a battery of four telescopes designed to photograph the sun's surface and atmosphere. AIA filters cover 10 different wavelength bands, or colors, selected to reveal key aspects of solar activity. The bulk of SDO's data stream will come from these telescopes.

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) will map solar magnetic fields and peer beneath the sun's opaque surface using a technique called helioseismology. A key goal of this experiment is to decipher the physics of the sun's magnetic dynamo.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will measure fluctuations in the sun's ultraviolet output. EUV radiation sun has a direct and powerful effect on Earth's upper atmosphere, heating it, puffing it up, and breaking apart atoms and molecules. "We really don't know how fast the sun varies at these wavelengths," notes Pesnell. "We're guaranteed to learn something new."

To gather data from all three instruments, NASA has set up a pair of dedicated radio antennas near Las Cruces, New Mexico. SDO's geosynchronous orbit will keep the observatory in constant view of the two 18-meter dishes around the clock for the duration of the observatory's five-year mission. Not a single bit should be lost.

"We're ready," says Pesnell. "Let the avalanche begin!"

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Arrives at Kennedy Space Center

NASA's upcoming mission to study the sun in unprecedented detail and its effects on Earth, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. on July 9.

The spacecraft left NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on July 7, where it was built and tested.

SDO will undergo final testing at Astrotech Space Operations, located near Kennedy Space Center, in preparation for its anticipated November launch. The SDO team will conduct of series of tests to be sure that the observatory arrived in good condition, as it is being readied for launch.

After the final tests are completed, SDO will move to launch complex 41 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the solar-studying spacecraft into orbit.


SDO will take measurements and images of the sun in multiple wavelengths for at least five years during its primary science mission. The spacecraft will collect a staggering 1.5 terabytes of data daily, the equivalent of downloading a half million songs a day.

Space weather results from changes on the sun, called solar activity. Active regions on the sun can erupt suddenly and violently, usually in the form of a solar flare or coronal mass ejection (CME).

Flares and CMEs can send millions of tons of solar material and charged particles streaming toward Earth on the solar wind. When the star stuff reaches Earth's atmosphere, it can damage orbiting satellites and wreak havoc on navigation systems and the power grid. Understanding space weather requires knowing the nature of changes that happen in the sun.


SDO is the first space weather research network mission in NASA's Living With a Star Program. The spacecraft's long-term measurements will give solar scientists in-depth information about changes in the sun’s magnetic field and insight into how those changes affect Earth.

Solar Dynamics Observatory Set For Shipment

GREENBELT, Md. - NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) soon will leave its home at Goddard Space Flight Center here and travel by truck to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where it is due to be orbited by an Atlas V rocket in November.

The first mission in NASA's Living With A Star program, SDO will study the solar atmosphere from geosynchronous Earth orbit, taking images of the sun in multiple wavelengths at a resolution 10 times higher than high-definition TV.

The spacecraft was designed and built by a team of 250 people at Goddard, and will be run from a dedicated Mission Operations Center here. It is scheduled to ship out July 7.

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SDO Spins Its Way Closer to Launch

04.28.09


Engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., recently tested NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to determine its mass properties. SDO, the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, will study the sun's atmosphere in unprecedented detail to reveal how variations on the sun influence Earth and nearby space.

For three days beginning on March 31, SDO sat on a slowly spinning "Miller Table" in the Spacecraft Checkout and Integration Area, a "clean room" at Goddard. Test engineers measured the spacecraft's mass, center of gravity, and moments and products of inertia to provide SDO's launch mass properties as accurately as possible. The moment of inertia describes how the spacecraft resists changes to its rate of rotation in each direction—important information to know prior to SDO's planned November launch.

"This is the final verification test of the observatory before shipping," said Son N. Ngo, the SDO mechanical lead engineer. "The final data will be used to verify requirements for the launch vehicle."

Deep Solar Minimum

April 1, 2009: The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.

2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.

Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).

It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center.

"This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center.



Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm—a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years: plot.

The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet—and here it is," says Pesnell.

But is it supposed to be this quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records:

A 50-year low in solar wind pressure: Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s—the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth.

A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites.



A 55-year low in solar radio emissions: After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955: plot. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood.

All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima.

"Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm."

Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year.


In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected.

Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of top solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. Pesnell has surveyed the scientific literature and prepared a "piano plot" showing the range of predictions. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle.

Pesnell believes sunspot counts will pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013.

But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear? Stay tuned for updates.

Here Comes The Sun

Since even before the dawn of civilization, the sun has been essential in farming, religion, and telling time. It's a star that's been worshipped and studied, and so to celebrate our 30th anniversary, correspondent Martha Teichner looks at the history of the sun, as well as a look forward to the future.

Some show-off, that sun. Performing its fire dance not just on Sunday, but every day, morning and night, the world over, for all of us Earthlings … rich and poor, old and young … no ticket required.

What exactly is the sun?

"It's a big ball of hydrogen gas," said Owen Gingerich, professor of astronomy and history of science emeritus, at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Not so big. In fact, kind of middling for a star … but enormous compared to the Earth.

"It's one thing to say, well, the diameter of the sun is 100 times the diameter of the Earth," Gingerich told Teichner. "But you don't really get the impression of how big the sun really is unless you can see it in three dimensions."

How old is the sun? "About five billion years," said Gingerich, who assured us, "it's just about halfway through its lifetime."

It's really hot, maybe 28 million degrees Fahrenheit at its core, and it's burning up. There are nuclear reactions going on inside it all the time. When the energy works its way to the surface, we see it as sunshine..

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Under the Lens: Investigating the Sun's Mysteries

Sometime around 2012, the waxing 11-year solar cycle once again will reach its peak. Between now and then, magnetically turbulent sunspots, spawned by some still mysterious process, will form near the poles in increasing numbers and migrate toward the Sun's faster-rotating equator in pairs of opposite polarity.

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Shout, Shake, and Bake: SDO Finishes Endurance Testing

"With a successful functional test, SDO has successfully completed the critical 'shout, shake, and bake' tests," said Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Project Scientist Dr. Dean Pesnell.

Testing began in February and included a one-minute acoustical test (shout), a vibration test (shake), and an extreme temperature test (bake).

"We want to test all the conditions that SDO will see during its launch and operations," said SDO Observatory Manager Dr. Brent Robertson. "During launch, SDO must withstand enormous vibrations, jarring shocks, and blasts of noise. In orbit SDO will be exposed to extremes of hot and cold."

SDO began the final tests of intense heat and circuit-chilling cold in July and finished them on August 17, 2008.

"SDO spent about 12 days in thermal balance," said SDO Integration and Test Manager David Amason.

This test subjects SDO first to intense heat and then to extreme cold to see how it affects the spacecraft's temperature. Once SDO settles into geosynchronous orbit around Earth, the observatory will most often be in direct sunlight but occasionally will be in the cold environment of the Earth's shadow. After testing the sun-focused spacecraft at these temperature extremes to see how hot or cold it gets, "we then ran thermal vacuum," said Amason. "We ran SDO through three cycles of hot and cold to see how the spacecraft performs," Amason added.

The 19 days of thermal-vac testing were the last major step for SDO before it ships to Florida for launch. There, SDO will undergo another Comprehensive Performance Testing (CPT), have its flight batteries installed, get fueled up for launch, and meet up with the launch vehicle. So far, it looks like a go for SDO.

Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age.

As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times.

"Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

A spotless day looks like this:




The image, taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on Sept. 27, 2008, shows a solar disk completely unmarked by sunspots. For comparison, a SOHO image taken seven years earlier on Sept. 27, 2001, is peppered with colossal sunspots, all crackling with solar flares: image. The difference is the phase of the 11-year solar cycle. 2001 was a year of solar maximum, with lots of sunspots, solar flares and geomagnetic storms. 2008 is at the cycle's opposite extreme, solar minimum, a quiet time on the sun.

And it is a very quiet time. If solar activity continues as low as it has been, 2008 could rack up a whopping 290 spotless days by the end of December, making it a century-level year in terms of spotlessness.

Hathaway cautions that this development may sound more exciting than it actually is: "While the solar minimum of 2008 is shaping up to be the deepest of the Space Age, it is still unremarkable compared to the long and deep solar minima of the late 19th and early 20th centuries." Those earlier minima routinely racked up 200 to 300 spotless days per year.



Some solar physicists are welcoming the lull.

"This gives us a chance to study the sun without the complications of sunspots," says Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Right now we have the best instrumentation in history looking at the sun. There is a whole fleet of spacecraft devoted to solar physics--SOHO, Hinode, ACE, STEREO and others. We're bound to learn new things during this long solar minimum."

As an example he offers helioseismology: "By monitoring the sun's vibrating surface, helioseismologists can probe the stellar interior in much the same way geologists use earthquakes to probe inside Earth. With sunspots out of the way, we gain a better view of the sun's subsurface winds and inner magnetic dynamo."

"There is also the matter of solar irradiance," adds Pesnell. "Researchers are now seeing the dimmest sun in their records. The change is small, just a fraction of a percent, but significant. Questions about effects on climate are natural if the sun continues to dim."

Pesnell is NASA's project scientist for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a new spacecraft equipped to study both solar irradiance and helioseismic waves. Construction of SDO is complete, he says, and it has passed pre-launch vibration and thermal testing. "We are ready to launch! Solar minimum is a great time to go."

Coinciding with the string of blank suns is a 50-year record low in solar wind pressure, a recent discovery of the Ulysses spacecraft. (See the Science@NASA story Solar Wind Loses Pressure.) The pressure drop began years before the current minimum, so it is unclear how the two phenomena are connected, if at all. This is another mystery for SDO and the others.

Who knew the blank sun could be so interesting? More to come...

NIST Assists in Solar Stake-Out to Improve Space Weather Forecasts

The sun is about to undergo unremitting scrutiny. About six times each minute of every hour for at least five years, a soon-to-be launched NASA satellite will measure the sun's quirky and sometimes stormy output of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. To ensure that this solar stake-out yields data useful for understanding the weather in space and its earthly consequences, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) are helping a NASA team prepare for annual rocket-borne check-ups of key instruments aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

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Out of this World But Close to Home: The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

A rocket garden, models of the Hubble Space Telescope, a piece of the Moon and a planetary movie on a sphere await your visit at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration established in 1958 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower) has many field centers around the country, but the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is home to the largest organization of combined scientists and engineers in our nation, “dedicated to learning and sharing knowledge of the Earth, Sun, Solar System, and Universe.” The Center is named for Dr. Robert H. Goddard, the father of modern rocket propulsion.

We may take for granted clear global telephone calls, heart-monitoring systems in hospitals, and detailed hurricane predictions, but they are all the result of NASA’s work with human space flight, space and earth science, and aeronautics. Some of these incredible achievements began right in our own neighborhood, and a diverse array of outreach programs at GSFC offers the public an opportunity to learn more about the work that continues to expand our understanding of the Universe.

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Solar Dynamics Laboratory's Smart Design Fosters Perfect Fit

Imagine a wedding dress or a tailored suit that fit the first time you tried it on. That's pretty similar to how engineers felt when the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft bus was lowered onto the propulsion module and it attached on the first try. "It’s like lowering a telephone booth over a person," said Gary Davis, SDO propulsion subsystem manager at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "The mechanical people made the operation look easy. It's never easy. There are some mechanical things you can never model and predict."

SDO will help scientists zoom in on solar activity such as sunspots, solar flares and coronal mass ejections, to better understand the causes thus improving forecasts of solar storms. Bad "space weather" can pose a threat to astronauts in orbit, as well as to aircraft crews flying over the poles of Earth -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Electrical power to our homes, satellite communications and navigation systems can all be disrupted by magnetic storms triggered by solar activity. SDO will provide a close-up look at these events.


For the past year, all of the spacecraft avionics were integrated and tested on a spacecraft bus. The spacecraft bus includes Goddard-built electronics, instrument electronics as well as procured components. It has everything required to control the spacecraft and get the data from the instruments to the ground.

During the same time, another team at Goddard was building the propulsion module, which includes all the hardware needed to get the spacecraft from the point at which the rocket leaves the observatory, the transfer orbit, to its final orbit. "We built these modules up in parallel to allow us to get more done in a shorter amount of time," said Brent Robertson, SDO Observatory Manager at Goddard.

This was the first time Goddard engineers built a bipropellant propulsion system. A bipropellant system is a two tank system with fuel in one tank and oxidizer in another. When the chemicals mix, they burst into flame. The main engines use the same technology as the Lunar Landers for the Apollo missions.


The propellant tanks are titanium balloons with the thickness of just 9 sheets of notebook paper, but they can hold 27 times their weight. There are 8 smaller attitude control thrusters and one main engine thruster. Four of the attitude control thrusters are backups. If the main thruster goes out, the smaller thrusters will be able to carry out SDO's mission. SDO is a five year mission, but the spacecraft will carry enough fuel for at least 10 years.

"There was a lot of anxiety about mating these highly complex modules," said Robertson. "We wanted to avoid any interference that might damage items such as the harness or thermal blankets. We had a well thought out and documented procedure for this operation."

In a very short amount of time, 30 minutes, engineers and technicians lowered the spacecraft bus onto the propulsion module with surgical precision. "The whole design was smart from the beginning," Davis says.

SDO started its first Comprehensive Performance Test (CPT)

SDO started its first Comprehensive Performance Test (CPT), designed to make sure all of the individual parts of the observatory work and can talk to each other. This series of tests lasts 6 days and will be repeated several more times as SDO is tested under launch and orbital conditions at the Goddard Space Flight Center.

NASA'S SDO Mission to Improve Predictions of Violent Space Weather

About 93 million miles from us lies an immense nuclear furnace spanning 100 Earths. In just one second, it produces enough power to supply the entire United States for nine million years. It is the closest star, our sun. Although its light powers almost all life on Earth, the sun has a dark side. Storms from the sun can knock our finely tuned technological civilization off balance, disrupting satellites, power grids, and radio communication, including the Global Positioning System. Radiation from solar storms can cause cancer in astronauts on unshielded areas, like the moon's surface.

Sometime between the end of 2008 and the beginning 2009, NASA will launch the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to trace these disturbances back to their origin deep within the sun. SDO will discover how the sun builds up and explosively releases magnetic energy, which powers severe space weather.

"Right now, we can make limited space weather predictions, but they are baby steps compared to our ability to forecast weather on Earth," said Dr. Dean Pesnell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., Project Scientist for SDO. "SDO's instruments are designed to work together to tell us more about how solar storms form, which will improve predictions of when they are about to happen."

Heat from nuclear fusion in the sun's core makes its outer layer churn like a pot of boiling water. Solar storms are born deep in this outer layer, with tangled magnetic fields generated by the sun’s churning electrically conducting gas (plasma). Like a rubber band that has been twisted too far, solar magnetic fields can suddenly snap to a new shape, releasing tremendous energy as a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection (CME).

Solar flares are explosions in the sun’s atmosphere, with the largest equal to billions of one-megaton nuclear bombs. Solar magnetic energy can also blast billions of tons of plasma into space at millions of miles (kilometers) per hour as a CME. This violent solar activity often occurs near sunspots, dark regions on the sun caused by concentrated magnetic fields. Sunspots and stormy solar weather follow a cycle that repeats approximately every eleven years, from few sunspots and quiet conditions to many sunspots and active, and back again.


Key to predicting solar storms and the solar activity cycle is an understanding of the flows of plasma inside the sun. Magnetic fields are "frozen" into the solar plasma, so plasma currents within the sun transport, concentrate, and help dissipate solar magnetic fields. Currently, the Sun’s activity is at its minimum, but by the time of the SDO launch, the activity level is expected to rise significantly.

Although the general process of solar activity and its cyclic behavior are known, many of the details are not, such as exactly what magnetic structures lead to flares and CMEs. These details need to be discovered before solar storm predictions improve, and SDO's suite of three instruments is designed to do just that.

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) can look inside the sun to map out the flows of plasma that generate solar magnetic fields. Helioseismology traces sound waves reverberating inside the sun to build up a picture of the interior, similar to the way an ultrasound scan is used to create a picture of an unborn baby. HMI will also be able to measure the strength and direction of the magnetic fields emerging on the sun's surface.

With these capabilities, HMI will help discover the mechanisms causing the sun's 11-year activity cycle and reveal how magnetic fields become concentrated by active regions, the areas around sunspots.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) will take pictures of the sun's atmosphere relatively close to the surface where solar magnetic fields suddenly change shape and release energy. It will be used with HMI to link changes on the surface to interior changes. The two instruments together will reveal how active regions concentrate and then violently disperse magnetic fields. Also, as the AIA observes flares and CMEs, scientists can link them to specific surface magnetic structures and interior plasma flows seen by HMI. Just as a hook-shaped structure in Doppler radar of thunderstorms indicates a possible tornado, scientists will discover what kinds of plasma flows and magnetic field shapes warn of imminent solar outbursts.


AIA will reveal how much this magnetic shape-shifting, called reconnection, heats the solar atmosphere. It can also indicate how much of a boost reconnection gives to the solar wind, a thin stream of plasma blown constantly from the sun through the solar system and beyond. Some magnetic storms are caused by solar wind. Thus, one needs to understand properties of the solar wind in order to predict those storms.

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will measure the sun's ultraviolet brightness. The sun's extreme ultraviolet output constantly changes. The small solar flares that happen almost every day can double the output while the large flares that happen about once a month can increase the ultraviolet a thousand times in minutes. This harmful ultraviolet radiation is completely absorbed in the atmosphere, which means we can only observe it from satellites.

Rapid changes in the ultraviolet radiation of the sun can cause outages in radio communications and affect satellites orbiting the Earth. Increases in solar ultraviolet radiation from flares heats Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to expand. The expansion makes the air denser at low-Earth-orbit altitudes, where many satellites fly. The denser air increases the drag on these satellites, slowing them down and causing them to prematurely burn up in the lower atmosphere if there is no more fuel on board to give them a boost.

EVE will take measurements of the sun's brightness as often as every ten seconds, providing space weather forecasters with warnings of communications and navigation outages. Pictures taken at the same time with AIA will tell scientists where the change in brightness came from and whether it was a flare, a CME, or some other event. HMI will reveal the magnetic and plasma flow activity behind the event.

Together, SDO's three instruments will enable scientists to understand when violent solar activity will occur, and discover whether it's possible to make accurate and reliable forecasts of space weather and climate.

SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, which seeks to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO is being designed, managed, and assembled at NASA Goddard. HMI is being built by Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. The Principal Investigator for HMI is Dr. Phil Scherrer of Stanford. AIA is being built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, Calif. AIA's Principal Investigator is Dr. Alan Title of LMSAL. EVE is being built by the University of Colorado, with Dr. Tom Woods of U. of Colorado as the Principal Investigator.

Third Instrument for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Arrives at Goddard

The third and final instrument for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has joined the other two at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) was delivered to Goddard in preparation for SDO's scheduled launch in December 2008. The AIA was designed and built at the Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory of the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center (ATC), Palo Alto, Calif.

The AIA is a suite of four telescopes designed to provide an unprecedented view of the sun’s lower corona, a part of the sun’s atmosphere relatively close to the surface. AIA’s telescopes will take nearly simultaneous images in multiple wavelengths that span an area at least 50% larger than the sun. AIA will be able to quickly create new multiple-wavelength images, about one every ten seconds, allowing scientists to create detailed movies of rapidly evolving solar storms. The multiple-wavelength view allows the imaging of gases at different temperatures, from 10,000 to 30,000,000 degrees Kelvin (~20,000 to 50,000,000 degrees Farenheit). Observing coronal gas heated to different temperatures will help scientists trace how the sun’s magnetic energy, which powers violent solar weather, is released in the corona.

"This is a very significant step for the solar physics community. Having AIA complete and undergoing integration on to the SDO spacecraft means we’re getting very close to the time when this instrument will be providing the kind of data we need to unravel mysteries of the sun that have been just beyond our grasp," said Alan Title, AIA principal investigator and a solar physicist of the ATC.

The AIA will provide new details about how the plasma and magnetic field in the corona changes during stormy activity like flares and eruptions as well as during relatively quiet times. These details are required for scientists using computer-generated models to test their theories about how magnetic energy is released in solar storms. Scientists hope observations with AIA will give them new insight into the physics behind the magnetic activity in the sun's atmosphere that drives space weather. New details about the physics show scientists how to revise their models. Comparing those revised models to AIA’s observations shows the scientists how well they simulate what was actually seen on the sun. Ultimately, scientists will use the new data from the AIA, the other instruments on SDO, and other solar observatories to improve forecasts of severe space weather. This is the goal of NASA's Living With a Star program.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory instruments, which include the AIA, the Heliospheric and Magnetic Imager and the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, are designed to work together. Their coordinated observations will determine how the sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured, how this stored magnetic energy is converted into heat and light, how it is released as solar wind and energetic particles, and how these processes change the solar irradiance. Solar irradiance is the source of virtually all the energy that enables life on Earth.

SDO is a major component of a fleet of focused science missions developed by the NASA Heliophysics Division. Each mission will cooperate with the others as components of a Great Observatory whose goal is to understand our heliosphere – the domain of the sun.

Solar Dynamics Observatory Instrument to Peer Inside the Sun Arrives at Goddard

The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, an instrument for the Solar Dynamics Observatory built by Stanford University and the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto, Calif., has arrived at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The imager will use a technique called "helioseismology" to gaze through the Sun at internal processes that will help us to understand the origins of solar weather. It is one of three instruments on the Observatory.

Near the surface of the Sun, extremely hot, ionized gas is churned up by convection, just like a pot of boiling water. These motions generate the Sun's magnetic field, but also create sound waves that move through the Sun. It is possible to see these sound waves as Doppler shifts when they hit the surface of the Sun, each one hinting at the activity going on below. Once launched aboard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) will measure these Doppler shifts over the entire visible part of the Sun. The data will then be used to create maps of the Sun's interior and the plasma flows that generate its magnetic field. To do so, HMI will measure 120 million pieces of data every 45 seconds.

This is no small task, "It’s like deducing the interior structure of a piano by listening to it fall down a flight of stairs," explained Phil Scherrer, SDO HMI Principal Investigator. "In a sense we hope to measure the sound of the sun in magnetically active regions, which generate a lot of severe solar weather.”

The technique of tracing sound waves reverberating inside the sun to build up a picture of the interior is known as "helioseismology" and works similar to the way an ultrasound scan is used to create a picture of an unborn baby. Helioseismology can even be used to map sunspots all the way on the other side of the sun from Earth. The precursor to HMI is the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI), launched in 1995 on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. MDI however has only limited coverage of the Sun, whereas HMI will provide a full-disk view with about one thousand times the data. HMI will also be capable of measuring the strength and direction of the magnetic fields emerging on the Sun’s surface.


SDO will carry two other instruments in addition to HMI. It is hoped the combination of their observations will enable researchers to establish the relationships between the internal dynamics and surface activity. "These three instruments together will enable scientists to better understand the causes of violent solar activity, and whether it’s possible to make accurate and reliable forecasts of space weather," said Liz Citrin, SDO Project Manager at NASA Goddard. "SDO will provide a full disk picture of the sun in super HD quality."

The Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) arrived at Goddard this September and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) will arrive before the end of the year. SDO and its components will be integrated and go through rigorous testing at Goddard’s state-of-the-art facilities up until it is shipped for launch sometime between the end of 2008 and the beginning of 2009.

SDO will be the first mission of NASA’s Living with a Star program. The goal of both SDO and Living with a Star is to help us understand and work towards predicting the changes in the Sun that influence life on Earth and human technology.

SDO is being designed, managed, and assembled at NASA Goddard. HMI was built in Palo Alto, Calif. at Stanford's partner institution Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL) as project of the Stanford Lockheed Institute for Space Research. The Stanford group will provide the science data processing center for both the HMI and the AIA instruments. AIA is also being built at LMSAL. EVE was built by the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Related Links

• Animations depicting how instruments like HMI (and its precursor, the Michelson Doppler Imager) peer inside the sun

Science Served Family Style

"Do we have intelligent life?" asks Diana Newman of Upper Marlboro. "It's right here," says Kyle, her 11-year-old son, pointing to a small green stick figure drawn on poster board. The mini alien is surrounded by pompoms, yarn and balloons, which represent planets, comets and asteroids. Kyle's father, Glenn, is also hunched over the model of the universe that the Newmans have created during Family Science Night at NASA's Goddard Visitor Center in Greenbelt. And at a dozen other round tables nearby, more adults and children are spending two hours tackling science-related tasks while learning from one another and NASA program leaders.

The goal of the monthly sessions, which continue through May, is to get kids in grades 6 through 8 -- and, just as important, their parents -- excited about science. (The next program, on Thursday, is titled "Have You Ever Seen the Invisible?," about electromagnetic waves.)

"We want to change their perception of science and scientists," says Emilie Drobnes, education and public outreach manager for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

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SEGway

SEGway is a group of educator-scientists working to present the latest astronomy and space science research to students, teachers, and the general public. SEGway actively collaborates with partners across the United States and has developed E/PO (education and public outreach) programs for a number of NASA space science missions including the EUVE, FAST, RHESSI, CHIPS, STEREO/IMPACT, WISE, and THEMIS satellite missions. SEGway has also been involved with E/PO programs for science projects such as the National Virtual Observatory and Stardust@home.

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Peninsula Boys and Girls Clubs to honor several off-campus youth programs

A dozen crickets atop a table: Half of them are crawling and jumping around, while the rest lie still on their sides. Which ones are alive, and which are dead?

Stanford students are asked this question and others in preparation for volunteering as a youth mentor for Science in Service, a program housed in the university's Haas Center for Public Service. Articulating the seemingly simple distinction between life and death proves daunting even for those studying science and engineering, according to program director Kelly Beck. But in the process, they learn how to ask the right questions and how to engage young minds in discussions about the whats and whys of the physical world.

Science in Service is one of many off-campus programs being recognized tonight by the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Peninsula. Other Stanford-based youth service programs that will be honored—with the Menlo Park-based nonprofit's Leading Community Partner award—include those involving students and staff from Stanford Athletics, the Graduate School of Business and the School of Education. University Provost John Etchemendy is expected to be in attendance.

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SDO EVE Instrument Arrives at Goddard

The University of Colorado at Boulder delivered the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE), the first of three Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) instruments, to Goddard Space Flight Center. EVE will measure how much the Sun’s ultraviolet
brightness changes.

Rapid changes in the ultraviolet radiation of the Sun can cause outages in radio
communications and affect satellites orbiting the Earth. Increases in solar
ultraviolet radiation from flares heat Earth's upper atmosphere, causing it to
expand. The expansion makes the air more dense at low-Earth-orbit altitudes, where many satellites fly. The dense air increases the drag on these satellites, slowing them down and causing them to prematurely burn up in the lower atmosphere if there is no more fuel onboard to give them a boost.

EVE will take measurements of the Sun's ultraviolet brightness as often as every 10 seconds, providing space weather forecasters with warnings of communications and navigation outages.

The Sun's extreme ultraviolet output constantly changes. The small solar flares that happen almost every day can double the output, while the large flares that happen about once a month can increase ultraviolet radiation many times in minutes. This harmful ultraviolet radiation is completely absorbed in the atmosphere, which means we can only observe it from satellites.

"The Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) is very excited about delivering the state-of-the-art EVE instrument to measure the solar extreme ultraviolet irradiance with best ever spectral resolution and time cadence," said
Tom Woods, SDO EVE Principal Investigator. "These future SDO EVE measurements are important for many different space weather applications such as how solar storms can degrade or even disrupt our navigation and communications."

After launch, SDO will study how solar activity is created and how space weather comes from that activity. SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. SDO's other instruments include the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA). These instruments are expected to arrive at Goddard by the end
of October.

"These three instruments together will enable scientists to better understand
the causes of violent solar activity, and whether it's possible to make accurate
and reliable forecasts of space weather," said Liz Citrin, SDO Project
Manager at Goddard. "SDO will provide a full disk picture of the Sun in super
HD quality."

SDO is the first mission of NASA's "Living With a Star" program, which
seeks to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth.
SDO is being designed, managed, and assembled at Goddard. HMI is being
built by Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. AIA is being built by the Lockheed
Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, Calif. EVE is
being built by the University of Colorado.

SDO is expected to launch no earlier than August 2008.

For more information and related images, please visit on the Web:

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/sdo_inst_arrival.html

For more information about the SDO mission, please visit on the Web:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

NASA prepares solar dynamic observatory

GREENBELT, Md., Sept. 10 (UPI) -- The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is preparing the first of three Solar Dynamic Observatories to monitor the sun's ultraviolet brightness.

The University of Colorado-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics delivered the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, or EVE, last week to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

EVE will monitor changes in the ultraviolet radiation emitted by the sun because such changes can cause outages in the Earth's radio communications and affect satellites orbiting the planet.

EVE will take measurements of the sun's ultraviolet brightness as often as every 10 seconds, providing space weather forecasters with warnings of communications and navigation outages.

The first solar dynamic observatory is expected to be launched no earlier than August 2008.

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2nd Annual 21st Century Explorer Podcast Competition

More than any other time in space exploration history, it's an exciting age for educators and students to be part of. Before the end of the next decade, NASA astronauts will return to the moon. This time, we're planning to stay, building outposts and paving the way for eventual journeys to Mars and beyond. Today's students will be tomorrow's explorers.

In 2008, NASA will celebrate its 50th anniversary. Sometimes, in order to look forward, we must take a step back to study the past. Because of this, we want to ask - What do you think is NASA's greatest exploration achievement in the past 50 years and why?

That's the question this competition asks of students ages 11-18. Sponsored by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), and in collaboration with NASA, the second annual 21st Century Explorer Podcast Competition challenges students to create unique audio and video podcasts.

Running from October 1 through January 4, this competition is open to United States citizens ages 11-18. Students are grouped into two age divisions: 11-14 and 15-18. Students in each division will submit an entry in one of two separate categories of their choosing: audio podcast or video podcast. First, second, and third place prizes will be awarded in each age group and category within that age group. An additional People's Choice Award, selected by the public, will honor one podcast for each age division.

Only one entry may be submitted for each student. More competition details and the entry form can be found at the 21st Century Explorer Podcast Competition website at http://www.explorationpodcast.com. Students under 18 need written consent from a parent or guardian.

All work needs to be original. Any use of copyrighted material will disqualify the entry.

So students, grab a computer, mic, and/or video camera and get busy. The competition begins October 1, and ends after the first 1,000 entries are submitted in each category OR at midnight on January 4, whichever comes first.

And teachers, encourage your students to put on their thinking caps, reflect on the past, and see how it connects to the future. This is a wonderful opportunity to take a close look at where space exploration may take 21st Century explorers!

Winners will be announced at the 3rd Space Exploration Conference in Denver, CO on February 28, 2008. Following the announcement, all winning entries will be posted on the competition website.

Related Links

• 3rd Space Exploration Conference


• The Vision for Space Exploration

The Quest to Predict the Next Space "Hurricane" Season

Violent solar events, like flares and coronal mass ejections, are the hurricanes of space weather, capable of causing havoc with satellites, power grids, and radio communication, including the Global Positioning System. The sun is heading into a new season of turbulent solar activity. Just like its seasonal hurricane predictions, on April 25, 2007, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will issue an update on efforts to predict the sun's next solar cycle.

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Apartment's connections lead to learning

Silver Spring complex offers a variety of educational, health services thanks to partnerships. Herminia Servat, 66, carefully pressed the "Control" and "P" keys on her computer Monday night, just as her instructor prompted, so a flier she had created would print. The Silver Spring resident regularly goes to the Pine Ridge Community Center in her apartment complex to take advantage of the classes it offers.

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Family Science Night at GSFC's Visitor Center inspires discovery

Family Science Night at GSFC's Visitor Center inspires discovery and generates enthusiasm in the wide variety of science and engineering research conducted at Goddard.

During two hours of exciting hands-on activities, NASA EPO professionals, scientists, and engineers work with local middle school students and their families as they explore various science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) themes.

The goal of Family Science Night is to raise awareness in middle school students and their families of the importance of science in their daily lives. By encouraging parents' active involvement in the evening programs, the importance of STEM fields is enforced as children often share the same passions as their parents. For instance, it is not uncommon for more than one member of a generation of a family to work at NASA at the same time.

"Through Family Science Night, we can improve attitudes toward science. We're working with parents to encourage their children, and to build a strong foundation in science that will serve them through high school, college, and on into working life," said Emile Drobnes, Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Education and Public Outreach Manager and co-organizer of Family Science Night. "We want to inspire these kids to take science classes, become science-literate adults, and hopefully even pursue STEM career paths. We're also strengthening parent-child relationships."

Educational research shows that parental involvement is key to a student's success. Children who have parents involved in their education consistently perform at higher levels than children whose parents are not involved. Family Science Night is one way to promote a connection between parents, children, and learning.

"While my granddaughter already enjoys science and math more than her other school subjects, Family Science Night increases her enthusiasm for them and fills in gaps in knowledge she may have,"

— said Patricia Ellis, a two-time Family Science Night participant who attends the events with her 13-year-old granddaughter.

"She is not the only one learning because I also get a lot from the program and enjoy the time we spend together."

Family Science Night also seeks to inspire underserved groups. Beginning on March 15, a new series of evenings will kick off that are devoted to the local Hispanic population, a group served by few local programs and underrepresented in STEM career fields. Working with the Goddard Hispanic Heritage Club, the organizers of Family Science Night developed a program that addresses these needs.

Dr. Maria Sol Colina-Trujillo, SDO EPO Coordinator, is certain of the positive impact a bilingual Family Science Night will have on Goddard's Hispanic community.

"The Family Science Night for the Hispanic Community reaches out to local, low income families that are not often exposed to science," said Dr. Colina-Trujillo. "By featuring both languages, the children that are familiar with the science terms in English, as well as the parents that are more familiar with the terms in Spanish, will both benefit from the new approach to science that Family Science Night provides."

In addition, CASA de Maryland, Inc. will support the Family Science Night designed especially for the Hispanic Community.

Goddard's Family Science Night origins can be traced to a successful family science program run by Dr. Jacob Noel-Storr, head of the Insight Lab for Science Outreach and Learning Research at the Rochester Institute of Technology Center for Imaging Science. Inspired by Dr. Noel-Storr's model, Goddard's program premiered on November 9, 2006 with an attendance of 10 families. The program has expanded to include 15 families per event and public interest always exceeds the program's capacity. Family Science Night will be held nearly every month until the 2006-2007 school year ends. Previous Family Science Nights have addressed scientific subjects under the titles, "Tis the Seasons," "Batteries Not Included," and "How Big? How Far? How Old?" Goddard's current Family Science Night pilot program is co-organized by Emilie Drobnes of the Heliophysics Science Division and Sara Mitchell of the Astrophysics Science Division. The Solar Dynamics Observatory supports the program.

Solar Opposites: Forecasts for Sun's Activity Disagree Wildly

The U.S.-led panel charged with predicting the intensity of the next cycle of sunspot activity will have to resolve highly divergent predictions issued this year by two leading solar forecasting modelers, according to solar experts at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

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Solar weather

"When sunspots change, they change everything in the solar system," he says. "When there are a lot of sunspots, there are storms on the sun. Magnetic energy turns to radiation, and it emits charged particles. When that happens, the magnetic field of the Earth is charged by the magnetic field of the sun."

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The next great sun-watching spacecraft

Beneath the buffer zone of the atmosphere and magnetic field, Earth is an oasis nourished by the light and heat of the sun. However, the solar fireball can adversely impact our increasingly technology-driven society as well as our climate.

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The Dynamic Sun Shines on Goddard

The Dynamic Sun Workshop is the brainchild of Dr. Barbara Thompson, Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Project Scientist here at NASA Goddard. The SDO scientists developed a workshop geared towards engineers who have a desire to do outreach would be a great way to empower NASA employees to get the NASA vision out to the community at large.

"For every future scientist in a classroom, there are several future engineers," said Thompson. "If we want to influence future generations, we need a greater representation from NASA's engineers."

The goal of the workshop is to encourage and facilitate outreach efforts in local schools and communities, including professional associations. It is geared for anyone interested in sharing their science, math, engineering and technological experiences with the public, specifically those SDO project personnel interested in learning more about education outreach.

Presenters for the workshop included Thompson, John Robinson, Deputy Program Manager for Living With a Star; Ken Hibbard, SOHO engineer; Barbara Lambert and Emilie Drobnes from SDO Education and Public Outreach; and Debbie Wood from the Chesapeake Children's Museum.

During the workshop, attendees are provided with the necessary tools to conduct a successful outreach experience and to take the stress out of the experience. As part of the workshop, attendees will build a shoebox spectroscope and learn about the light spectrum, map the magnetic field, use a sunspotter to view sunspots, access numerous Sun Earth Connection web resources, and borrow space-related materials for outreach presentations.

"Presentations to the public about the science on our missions don't have to be complicated," said Thompson. "In fact, it's better if it's presented in a way that focuses on the impact and the importance of the research. Most of the engineers I've worked with are deeply concerned about the scientific success, and have already begun to educate themselves on our research."

A "Dynamic Sun" website (dynamicsun.gsfc.nasa.gov) has been developed to provide presentation materials and hands-on activities dealing with the Sun and the Sun-Earth Connection for those who want to participate in an outreach experience, including special presentations on SDO and other recent missions. All of the presentations were prepared using Power Point and can be easily modified to meet the target audience, which can range from kindergarten students to amateur astronomers. Everything is included on the website, i.e: the image presentations and their associated scripts.

"We've bought a computer, software, equipment, and demonstration materials," said Thompson. "We've loaded all of the presentations, activity booklets, demo instructions, and lots of web links and resources onto the computer. We pair them with a scientist to help them understand all of the materials. All they have to do is sign out the equipment and go."

The workshop has been offered twice, Aug. 14 and Aug. 22. Both sessions have had as many as 30 participants. The project plans to host additional workshops to interested parties in the fall.

Although initially tailored to the SDO project, the workshop can be tailored and offered to other projects on center if desired.

"The engineers are vital to the scientific success of our missions, and often they disappear from the public eye after launch," added Thompson. "We want to take advantage of their dedication and put them in the spotlight."

SDO is the first Space Weather Research Network mission in the Living With a Star program. SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously. SDO will study the source of the Sun's energy, the solar interior, as well as the many manifestations of the storage and release of energy in the Sun's atmospheric layers. SDO will provide us with the tools and scientific understanding that will enable us to improve the quality of solar activity forecasts.

SDO, scheduled for launch in 2007, is designed to fly for a nominal 5 years.

For more information on the Dynamic Sun, please refer to the following website, http://dynamicsun.gsfc.nasa.gov/presentations.html

For more information on the SDO and LWS please consult the following websites: http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov and http://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov

NASA Selects Investigations For Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/08/020821070823.htm

NASA Selects Stanford Team To Design And Direct Major Solar Experiment For 2007 Launch

NASA has selected a team of astrophysicists at Stanford University to design and oversee the primary experiment aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) a new research satellite scheduled for launch in August 2007. According to NASA officials, part of SDO's mission is to learn how to predict destructive flares and solar storms generated by the Sun's mysterious magnetic fields. The satellite will be designed to remain in geosynchronous orbit 22,000 miles above Earth for at least five years, providing a constant stream of data about the complex magnetic fields generated deep in the solar interior.

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Investigations picked for Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.

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Press Release - NASA HQ Announces Instrument Selection for SDO

NASA has selected three proposals for implementation for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. The SDO is the first in a series of missions in the Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO flight instruments will be flown on a NASA-supplied Sun-pointing spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit that NASA intends to launch in August 2007 for a prime mission of five years.

"The Solar Dynamics Observatory is the cornerstone of the new Living with a Star program," said Dick Fisher, director of the Sun-Earth Connection Division in NASA's Office of Space Science in Washington. "The SDO mission is designed to provide new data concerning the nature and consequences of solar variability to humanity and will directly contribute to NASA's mission to understand and protect the home planet."

The LWS initiative addresses aspects of the Sun-Earth system that affect life and society. The primary goal of the SDO mission is to understand and, ideally, predict the solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity's technological systems. SDO will do this by determining how the Sun's magnetic field is generated and structured and how this stored magnetic energy is converted and released into the heliosphere and geospace in the form of solar wind (a magnetized plasma), energetic particles, and variations in the solar brightness. The three selected proposals were judged to have the best science value among the eight proposals submitted to NASA in January 2002 in response to the SDO Announcement of Opportunity. Each selected investigation will work with the SDO office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., to finalize the spacecraft's accommodation of the instrument sets. Total cost of the payload to NASA from development through five years of operation is about $123 million. The SDO spacecraft is being provided by GSFC.

The investigations selected by NASA for SDO are:

• Helioseismic and Vector Magnetic Imager (HVMI), as the prime SDO investigation will study the origin of solar variability by characterizing and developing an understanding of Sun's interior and the various components of its magnetic activity. Dr. Philip Scherrer of Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., is the principal investigator. Instrumentation will be developed with the assistance of a Lockheed Martin team.



• Solar Heliospheric Activity Research and Prediction Program (SHARPP) uses two
  instruments: an Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and a white light coronagraph (WCI). SHARPP's instruments will study the dynamic solar atmosphere, linking the HVMI interior and surface measurements to the overlying corona to learn how and why the Sun's atmosphere varies. With unprecedented time and spatial resolution, SHARPP should develop space weather predictions for the terrestrially important phenomena. Dr. Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, D.C. will lead a large international team as the SHARPP principal investigator.



• Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) will measure the solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance with great detail and precision and apply physics-based modeling to advance understanding of the EUV irradiance variations based on the Sun's magnetic features. Solar EUV energy heats the upper atmosphere of the Earth. The EVE investigation is lead by Dr. Thomas Woods from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics of the University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo.

"Both government and civilian users of space weather data have expressed keen interest in the new information anticipated from the SDO mission,” Fisher said.
Living With a Star is part of the Sun-Earth Connection Division within NASA’s Office of Space Science, Washington. The SDO mission brings together teams from university, industry, and NASA Center communities and is a multilateral international collaboration involving participants from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, England, and the United States.

For more information on NASA's Living With A Star program, visit:
http://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For a copy of this press release:
Press Release