Momentum Management Maneuver #20 is Today

SDO will execute Momentum Management Maneuver #20 today from about 1915-1945 UTC (3:15-3:45 p.m. ET). This Delta-H burn is used to keep the reaction wheels within their speed limits. During the maneuver the science data is usually not valid as the spacecraft moves around.

We are looking forward to eclipse season starting August 29, 2014, giving us another opportunity to see the Earth's limb against the Sun. Eclipse season ends September 21, just in time for a lunar transit on September 24 from 0650-0720 UTC (2:50-3:20 a.m. ET).A station-keeping maneuver will happen on September 3, 2014, at 2245 UTC (6:45 p.pm. ET).

This Week in SDO

On July 9 SDO did the EVE FOV and HMI/AIA Flatfield maneuvers. You may have seen the images from AIA wiggle and blur during these maneuvers. This is a normal part of running a solar observatory in a geosynchronous orbit.

This week we have the EVE cruciform maneuver on Wednesday, July 23. On Saturday, July 26 we will have a lunar transit. Here is a short movie showing how the Moon moves through the SDO field of view. The transit lasts from 1457–1542 UTC (10:57-11:42 a.m. ET).

It isn't a very long transit, nor does the Moon cover a lot of the Sun. SDO will watch two more lunar transits this here, so stay tuned.

The Sun had a spotless day on July 17! According to the SIDC there were no sunspots on the Sun that day. The average sunspot number for 2014 remains at 90, even though the daily value has been as high as 150. This was the first spotless day since 2011. Unlike the spotless days in 2009-2011, several small sunspots appeared that day. They weren't seen at the earlier time used by the official observer. Here is an HMI with the sunspot circled.

They were pretty small sunspots!

What Is a Magnetic Field?

Recently I was working at the City Skies Solar Workshop at the Franklin Institute. This program brings middle school teachers and community center leaders together to provide STEM activities at the centers with the teachers ensuring the science content. It’s a really nice program that SDO has worked with for two years.

During the June workshop one of the center leaders asked, “What is a magnetic field?” Now that should be an easy question to answer. SDO/HMI measures the magnetic field of the Sun (see today's solar magnetic field map on the left); we use compasses to find directions using the Earth’s magnetic field. So, what is a magnetic field? It wasn’t as easy to answer as I thought.

A magnetic field is one of the fields used to track forces. It gives us a recipe to describe magnetic forces around the source of the field.

Gravitational fields are used to describe the orbits of planets around the Sun. Electric fields describe how currents flow in the power grid and how radios work. A magnetic field is how we keep track of the magnetic force created by many moving particles (or electrical currents). There are two nuclear fields as well. Fields are not simple concepts. They do not follow our usual experiences. A concept like Newton’s law of motion, that force is equal to mass times acceleration, can be seen every day. But even though they are invisible, fields are as real as the forces they allow us to calculate.

The magnetic force doesn’t work in the way the electric and gravitational force work. Both of those draw particles together (or make them move apart for like electrical charges). Only moving charges can feel the force from a magnetic field. As soon as a particle feels the effect of a magnetic field it starts to move in a circle. The speed of the particle doesn’t change but the direction of the velocity does. This makes a magnetic field a good deflector of particles. There are only the holes at the poles that allow particles in.

Magnetic fields come from electrical currents, whether in the Sun or a magnet. The strength of magnetic forces can be greater than the force of gravity (that’s why magnets work) but it is weaker than the electric forces between charges. It also works when the source of the magnetic field is electrically neutral!

Magnetic forces from those fields push around moving charged particles. Those moving charged particles also produce a magnetic field. Interesting things, like the solar dynamo, happen where the strengths of the magnetic fields from the two sets of moving charged particles are about the same. By concentrating on what a magnetic field does to the charged particles moving through it we are acting like the scientists who first tried to understand why compasses were affected by electrical currents in nearby wires. They also mapped the shape of magnetic fields on Earth with iron filings (and more complicated instruments). On the Sun we can trace the magnetic field in the corona using EUV images (such as from SDO/AIA). Newer instruments can measure the actual coronal magnetic field, which can be compared with how the plasma moves in the EUV images. We use the Zeeman effect on iron atoms by measure the magnetic field near the surface of the Sun. Those scientists also began thinking about fields and started us down the road to modern physics.

What is a magnetic field? A magnetic field is the region of space near a body where magnetic forces due to the body can be detected. It’s the reaction of the particles that counts, not the region.

Edited 08/05/2014 to fix the bar magnet picture.

@NASA_SDO Won't Tweet Anymore

The @NASA_SDO and @NASA_SDO_EDU Twitter feeds are changing. The main feed, @NASA_SDO, has ended and traffic will be redirected to @NASASunEarth. The teacher feed, @NASA_SDO_EDU, is now being handled by people at Stanford University.

@NASA_SDO was one of the first Twitter feeds providing updates about a NASA mission. It was where the first NASA TweetUp for launch was posted. The First Light press conference was attended by several Twitter correspondents, who sent out their impressions on this feed. @NASA_SDO was where Comet Lovejoy reappeared as the Phoenix comet and where Comet ISON never even showed up. I hope the 17K followers keep up with the SDO updates on @NASASunEarth and @TheSunToday.

Many thanks to @AleyaJean for bringing Twitter to SDO! #SadToSeeItEnd

Another Double Whammy from Active Region 12087!

Active Region 12087 rotated into view yesterday and produced 2 X-class flares. This morning it produced an M8 and an X1 flare about an hour apart. Here is an AIA 94 Å passband image from 0914 today showing the second flare. At the same time the AR 12080/12085 area also had a brightening (as can be seen by the vertical line in this image) and a small piece of AR 12082 also brightened.

Makes you want to get up early in the morning just to see what's happening on the Sun!

Great Day in the Mornin', A Double X-flare

This morning a new active region rotated into view on the solar disk and promptly emitted two X-class flares. Here is a movie of the first flare in the AIA 1600 passband. It peaked in the NOAA X-ray channel at 1142 UTC. You can see the flare and some footpoints down and to the right of the flare. You can also see material blowing off the sun. The geometric shapes that are visible during the peak of the flare are reflections of the front window of the telescope. 

It's going to be an interesting week on the Sun!

Dr. Thomas Duvall, Jr., wins the 2014 AAS/SPD Hale Prize

Last night the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society awarded their highest honor to Tom Duvall, a NASA scientist who spent his career using the waves seen at the surface of the Sun to look inside the Sun. Dr. Duvall then gave the Hale Prize lecture where he described the many ways helioseismology has grown since the waves were first seen in the 1960's. His observations of the Sun at the South Pole showed how important continuous strings of data where to understand the Sun. His later work with SOHO MDI and SDO HMI pushed his students to develop ever-better ways to look inside the Sun. After describing the inside of the Sun, he showed how the techniques of helioseismology have been adapted for seismology and metal fatigue.

The Hale Prize is awarded annually by the Solar Physics Division of the American Astronomical Society for outstanding contributions over an extended period of time to the field of solar astronomy. The prize is named in memory of George Ellery Hale, who discovered the magnetic field in sunspots and also developed the observing techniques that made local helioseismology possible.

The citation for Dr. Duvall reads:

Hale Prize for 2014

The Hale Prize has been awarded to Thomas Duvall, Jr., for his invention and application of innovative helioseismic methods and the resulting ground-breaking discoveries within the solar interior, including internal sound-speed and rotation profiles, meridional circulation, wave perturbations in sunspots, and large scale convection properties.

Congratulations Tom for a well-deserved award!