There it will operate under the direction of Dr. Peter Bernath, chair of the ODU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. He is a long-time FTS user whose work includes discovering traces of steam inside sunspots ("Water on the Sun").

"The FTS is one of the premier instruments for laboratory spectroscopy, high-resolution solar spectroscopy, and other research," Bernath said. "It is a fantastic instrument."

The FTS was built in 1971-76 and used almost continuously through 2001 at NSO's McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope at Kitt Peak for solar and atmospheric physics, and as a stand-alone laboratory spectrometer.

It was designed by the late Dr. James Brault, a physicist who joined NSO in the mid-1960s. Brault had a strong aptitude for instrumentation and computer programming, and applied his unique perspective and talents to what was then consdiered a radical departure from spectrograph design. Pressures on the NSO budget have made it impossible to keep operating the FTS, and other operators at Kitt Peak have expressed interest in its lab space.

Millions of people have seen one of its products, a reconstruction of the Sun's spectrum mottled with black absorption lines representing the fingerprints of atoms in the solar atmosphere. The colorful image only hints at the power of the FTS, which can measure the intensity of light in incredibly narrow slices of the spectrum from 250 nm (ultraviolet) to 18,000 nm (18 microns; far infrared). Human vision spans just 380-770 nm (violet to deep red).

The solar spectrum image came from the 1984 "Solar Flux Atlas from 296 to 1300 nm" (ultraviolet to near-infrared). This Atlas, "Atmospheric Transmission Above Kitt Peak, 0.5 to 5.5 microns" (green to mid-infrared), and other products still are used worldwide. Still more can be done with the FTS.

"I would like to use the FTS in a laboratory here at ODU to make measurements related to molecules in the atmospheres of planets, comets, and stars, as well as for undergraduate and graduate teaching" Bernath said. For example, Bernath has used the FTS to analyze an unusual cousin of cyanide, CN molecules (cyano free radical) found in many astronomical sources and in flames here on Earth.

His particular interest is molecules made of rare carbon-13 or nitrogen-15 isotopes or both. The slight mass difference causes subtle changes in emissions from the more common version, shedding light on the composition, history and origin of comets, planets, and stars.

The heart of the FTS goes back to 1887 and early relativity experiments involving the speed of light by A. A. Michelson. Mechanical yardsticks won't do, so Michelson used light. Folding a beam of light back on itself forms light and dark patterns as the light waves interfere with each other. Changes along the path alter the pattern in a measurable fashion. This allows measuring the intensity of light at extremely fine fractions of a wavelength.

Such precision required special carriages that slide the FTS's optics on fine oil bearings mounted atop a polished granite table, all inside a vacuum chamber as a laser measures their ever-changing positions.

The Fourier Transform part of the name refers to a sophisticated type of math used to reconstruct the spectrum from the interference pattern. While more complex than a grating that spreads light much like a CD creating the rainbow, the delicate system gave the FTS exquisite precision that made it invaluable in the history of solar physics, and should make it an asset for continued exploration of the cosmos.

NSO's mission is to advance knowledge of the Sun, both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth, by providing forefront observational opportunities to the research community.

NSO is operated by Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA Inc.) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the benefit of the astronomical community.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Durham NH (SPX) Feb 02, 2012 - A potent follow-up solar flare, which occurred Friday (Jan. 27, 2012), just days after the Sun launched the biggest coronal mass ejection (CME) seen in nearly a decade, delivered a powerful radiation punch to Earth's magnetic field despite the fact that it was aimed away from our planet.

According to University of New Hampshire scientists currently studying and modeling various aspects of solar radiation, this was due to both the existing population of energetic particles launched by the first CME and a powerful magnetic connection that reeled particles in towards Earth from the Sun's blast region, which had spun to an oblique angle.

"Energetic particles can sneak around the 'corner,' as was the case in Friday's event when it was launched at the Sun's limb, or edge," says astrophysicist Harlan Spence, director of the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space (EOS) and principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission. CRaTER is designed to measure and characterize aspects of the deep space radiation environment.

Space weather events can disrupt Earth-based power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, can lead to some rerouting of flights over the polar regions, and pose severe risk to astronauts beyond low-Earth orbit.

The first explosion, which occurred Monday, Jan. 23, 2012, fell just short of being rated an X-class flare - the most powerful type of solar storm. When Friday's X-flare exploded from the same sunspot region that was the source of the week's earlier blast, the Sun's west limb was pointing away from Earth.

Nonetheless, the resulting high-energy protons that speed toward Earth even faster than the four-million-mile-per-hour solar wind demonstrated that dangerous "space weather" can affect us even when the planet is not in the direct path.

"The magnetic field lines on which energetic particles travel curve from the Sun to Earth unlike CMEs, which travel in straight lines. In the case of the second flare, energetic particles were magnetically connected to Earth even though the second CME from this active region missed us entirely," explains Madhulika Guhathakurta, lead program scientist of NASA's Living with a Star program.

Notes Spence, "And the situation was worsened, from the standpoint of radiation, because there was a pre-existing energetic particle population, from the first CME, when the second one arrived."

CRaTER's primary goal has been to characterize the global lunar radiation environment and its biological impacts. It does so by measuring galactic and solar cosmic radiation from behind a "human tissue-equivalent" plastic. During the two and a half years the LRO mission has been making measurements, the latest solar events are the most significant with respect to incoming radiation.

"We now have estimates of the dose and can speak to the biological impacts that might have occurred in deep space to astronauts," says Michael Wargo, NASA's chief lunar scientist.

Both events, while strong forms of space weather, were not as powerful as the 2003 Halloween storms, which were the most powerful space weather events of the last 22 years. But as the Sun moves towards solar maximum in 2013, it may yet have even more powerful storms to deliver as it becomes increasingly violent.

Measurements from CRaTER, and predictions from the UNH Earth-Moon-Mars Radiation Environment Module (EMMREM), whose principal investigator is astrophysicist Nathan Schwadron of the EOS Space Science Center, describe radiation exposure in space, on the Moon, and in planetary environments. The resulting understanding of space radiation hazards becomes evermore critical in studying and predicting the effects of these powerful solar outbursts.

Notes Guhathakurta, "The use of EMMREM to characterize active events highlights our rapidly advancing capabilities for understanding, characterizing, and even predicting the radiation coming from our increasingly active Sun."

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Sunspot NM (SPX) Feb 02, 2012 - Hydrogen molecules may act as a kind of energy sink that strengthens the magnetic grip that causes sunspots, according to scientists from Hawaii and New Mexico using a new infrared instrument on an old telescope.

"We think that molecular hydrogen plays an important role in the formation and evolution of sunspots," said Dr. Sarah Jaeggli, a recent University of Hawaii at Manoa graduate whose doctoral research formed a key element of the new findings.

She conducted the research with Drs. Haosheng Lin, also from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and Han Uitenbroek of the National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, NM. Jaeggli now is a postdoctoral researcher in the solar group at Montana State University. Their work is published in the Feb. 1, 2012, issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

They used the new Facility Infrared Spectropolarimeter at the Dunn Solar Telescope at Sunspot, NM, and the older Horizontal Spectrograph. Although built in 1969, the Dunn now is equipped with advanced adaptive optics that correct for much of atmospheric blurring.

The team analyzed seven active regions on the Sun, one in 2001 and six during December 2010 to December 2011 as Sunspot Cycle 23 faded away. The full sunspot sample has 56 observations of 23 different active regions.

Sunspots appear to come and go in approximate 11-year cycles. They are brighter than an arc-welder's torch, but appear black because the surrounding solar surface is so much brighter. Galileo and his contemporaries discovered sunspots in 1610. George Ellery Hale discovered magnetism in spots in 1908, and scientists soon determined that intense magnetism suppresses the normal convective motions present throughout the solar photosphere and forms "cool" spots.

But the details remain a mystery. Among the clues solar physicists have observed is a direct relationship between the spot's inner temperature and its magnetic field strength. But at very low temperatures, the field strength makes a sharp rise.

"This result is puzzling," Jaeggli and her colleagues wrote. It implies some undiscovered mechanism inside the spot.

One suspect is hydrogen atoms combining into hydrogen molecules (H2). The Sun is about 90 percent hydrogen atoms (plus 10 percent helium and 0.13 percent everything else). Most of the hydrogen is ionized atoms since the average surface temperature is an inferno-like 5780K (9944 deg. F). Yet it is a "cool star" since astronomers can detect heavy-element molecules in the solar spectrum. In 1997 they even found water, as traces of super-heated steam, inside spots.

This suggests that a spot's cool umbra, the "black" shadow at center, might let hydrogen molecules combine in surface layers. As early as 1986 the late Prof. Per E. Maltby and colleagues at the University of Oslo predicted that the gas in the umbra could be as much as 5 percent hydrogen molecules.

Such a shift would cause a major change in sunspot dynamics. A basic law of physics is that gas particles exert the same pressure whether they are atoms or molecules. A hydrogen molecule will provide half the pressure of the two atoms it used to be. And bonds between atoms oscillate and rotate, thus storing energy without raising the temperature. (This is why water absorbs a lot of heat before boiling.)

"The formation of a large fraction of molecules may have important effects on the thermodynamic properties of the solar atmosphere and the physics of sunspots," Jaeggli wrote.

But direct measurement of hydrogen molecules in spots is beyond our grasp for now, so the team measured a stand-in, the hydroxyl radical made of one atom each of hydrogen and oxygen (OH). About 1 percent of the mass of the Sun is oxygen. OH dissociates (breaks into atoms) at a slightly lower temperature than H2, meaning H2 can also form in regions where OH is present.

By coincidence, one of its infrared spectral lines is 1565.2nm, almost the same as the 1565nm line of iron, used for measuring magnetism in a spot and one of the lines FIRS is designed to observe. (These are twice the wavelength of the deepest red, 770nm, the human eye can see.)

First using the older HSG in 2001, and then with the more advanced FIRS in 2009-10, the team measured magnetic fields across sunspots, and the OH intensity inside spots. From that, they calculated the H2 concentrations.

"We found evidence that significant quantities of hydrogen molecules form in sunspots that are able to maintain magnetic fields stronger than 2,500 Gauss," Jaeggli said. By comparison, Earth's magnetic field, which turns a compass needle, is about one-half Gauss. The team estimated a hydrogen molecule quantity of a few percent.

Jaeggli said its presence leads to a temporary "runaway" intensification of the magnetic field. Magnetic flux emerges from the interior and suppresses convection at the surface, trapping cool gas that has radiated its energy into space. Molecular hydrogen forms, reducing the volume. This is more transparent than atomic hydrogen, so more energy radiates into space, cooling the gas further. Hot gases around the emerging flux compress the cooler region and intensify the magnetic field.

Eventually it levels out, partly from energy radiating in from the surrounding gas. Otherwise, the spot would grow without bounds. As the magnetic field weakens, the H2 and OH molecules heat up and dissociate back to atoms, compressing the remaining cool regions and keeping the spot from collapsing.

The team says that simulations are needed to test their observations. They also note that most of the active regions observed are of modest field strength. They expect that Cycle 24, which is now ramping up, will provide stronger active regions for a test of their hypothesis.

NSO's mission is to advance knowledge of the Sun, both as an astronomical object and as the dominant external influence on Earth, by providing forefront observational opportunities to the research community. NSO is operated by Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA Inc.) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation (NSF) for the benefit of the astronomical community.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Los Angeles CA (SPX) Feb 02, 2012 - Scientists say they have solved the mystery of why electrically-charged particles trapped in radiation belts thousands of kilometers above the Earth suddenly vanish and then reappear during periods of heightened solar activity.

NASA-funded researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) tracked the electrons using data collected simultaneously with 11 different spacecraft.

Their findings show that when bursts of solar energy released by storms on the sun strike Earth's magnetic field, they send electrons in the so-called Van Allen radiation belts hurtling into outer space. Within a few days, the depleted radiation rings once again swell with a whole new crop of the sun's highly-charged electrons, which are so energetic that they move at almost the speed of light.

The UCLA researchers note that the highly charged particles that escape the Van Allen belts always stream outward, rather than raining down into Earth's atmosphere as some theories suggest.

Understanding how solar energy moves in and out of the Van Allen radiation belts has been a critical part of developing accurate space weather forecasts.

Radiation from solar storms can pose a life-threatening danger to the crew of the International Space Station, but it also can damage orbiting satellites, silence ground communications and knock out electric power grids.

The new NASA-UCLA study is published on the Internet in the journal, Nature Physics.

The Van Allen belts are a system of bubble-shaped rings of radiation that encircle the planet. Earth's protective magnetic field holds the Van Allen belts in their position several tens of thousands of kilometers above its surface, and protects the planet from deadly solar, cosmic and other types of space radiation.

The Van Allen belts are named after late NASA astrophysicist James Van Allen, who confirmed presence of the radiation rings in 1958. The pioneering scientist died in 2006 at the age of 91.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Greenbelt, MD (SPX) Jan 31, 2012 - When scientists discovered two great swaths of radiation encircling Earth in the 1950s, it spawned over-the-top fears about "killer electrons" and space radiation effects on Earthlings. The fears were soon quieted: the radiation doesn't reach Earth, though it can affect satellites and humans moving through the belts. Nevertheless, many mysteries about the belts - now known as the Van Allen Radiation belts - remain to this day.

Filled with electrons and energetic charged particles, the radiation belts swell and shrink in response to incoming solar energy, but no one is quite sure how. Indeed, what appears to be the same type of incoming energy has been known to cause entirely different responses on different occasions, causing increased particles in one case and particle loss in another.

Theories on just what causes the belts to swell or shrink abound, with little hard evidence to distinguish between them. One big question has simply been to determine if, when the belts shrink, particles escape up and out into interplanetary space or down toward Earth.

Now, a new study using multiple spacecraft simultaneously has tracked the particles and determined the escape direction for at least one event: up.

"For a long time, it was thought particles would precipitate downward out of the belts," says Drew Turner, a scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, and first author on a paper on these results appearing onine in Nature Physics on January 29, 2012 date. "But more recently, researchers theorized that maybe particles could sweep outward. Our results for this event are clear: we saw no increase in downward precipitation."

While it may sound like a simple detail, such knowledge is not just esoteric. Indeed, the study of particle losses in the belts has so far provided more mystery and potential theories than concrete information. But understanding the radiation belts - and how they change as particles and energy come in or go out - is a crucial part of protecting satellites that fly through the region.

The Van Allen belts fit into a larger system that stretches from the sun to Earth. The sun sends out a constant stream of solar wind, not to mention occasional much larger bursts - such as explosions from the sun's atmosphere called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) or shock fronts caused by fast solar winds overtaking slower winds called corotating interaction regions (CIRs).

When these bursts of energy move toward Earth, they can disturb Earth's own magnetic environment, known as the magnetosphere, and create a geomagnetic storm. Sometimes these storms can cause a sudden drop in the radiation belt particles, seemingly emptying the belt in only a few hours. This "drop out" can last for days. What causes the drop out, why it lasts so long, and just how the particles even leave remain unanswered questions.

Solving such a mystery requires numerous spacecraft measuring changes at several points in space to determine whether an event in one place affects an event elsewhere.

The Radiation Belt Storm Probes (RBSP), scheduled to launch in August 2012, are specifically geared for such observations, but in the meantime, a team of scientists have brought together two disparate sets of a spacecraft to get an early multipoint view of the radiation belts during an event when the belts experienced a sudden loss of particles.

"We are entering an era where multi-spacecraft are key," says Vassilis Angelopoulos, a space scientist at UCLA, and the principal investigator for THEMIS and a coauthor on the paper. "Being able to unite a fleet of available resources into one study is becoming more of a necessity to turn a corner in our understanding of Earth's environment."

In this case, the team observed a small geomagnetic storm on January 6, 2011 using the three NASA THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) spacecraft, two GOES (Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite), operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and six POES (Polar Operational Environmental Satellite), run jointly by NOAA, and the European Organization for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT) spacecraft.

The THEMIS and GOES spacecraft orbit around Earth's equatorial region, while the POES spacecraft orbit at lower altitude near the poles and travel through the radiation belts several times per day.

All are equipped to study the energetic particles in the region. The observations provided an unprecedented view of a geomagnetic storm from numerous viewpoints simultaneously - and the team found unequivocally that particles escaped the radiation belts by streaming out into space, not by raining down toward Earth.

During this storm, electrons moving near the speed of light dropped out for over six hours. In that time period POES saw no increase in electrons escaping downward from the belts. On the other hand, the spacecraft did monitor a low-density patch of the belt that first appeared at the outer edges of the belts and then moved inward.

This sequence is consistent with the notion that particles were streaming outward, just as the low density region of cars leaving from the front of a traffic jam moves backward over time as more and more cars are able to move forward and escape.

"This was a very simple storm," says Turner. "It's not an extreme case, so we think it's probably pretty typical of what happens in general and ongoing results from concurrent statistical studies support this."

If, indeed, electrons usually escape the radiation belts by streaming outward, it seems likely that some kind of waves aid and abet their outward motion, enabling them to reach the outer escape boundary. Hammering out this escape mechanism will be one of the jobs for RBSP, says David Sibeck at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., who is NASA's mission scientist for RBSP and project scientist for THEMIS.

"This kind of research is a key to understanding, and eventually predicting, hazardous events in the Earth's radiation belts," says Sibeck. "It's a great comprehensive example of what we can expect to see throughout the forthcoming RBSP mission."

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Greenbelt, MD (SPX) Jan 31, 2012 - After years of relative somnolence, the sun is beginning to stir. By the time it's fully awake in about 20 months, the team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., charged with researching and tracking solar activity, will have at their disposal a greatly enhanced forecasting capability.

Goddard's Space Weather Laboratory recently received support under NASA's Space Technology Program Game Changing Program to implement "ensemble forecasting," a computer technique already used by meteorologists to track potential paths and impacts of hurricanes and other severe weather events.

Instead of analyzing one set of solar-storm conditions, as is the case now, Goddard forecasters will be able to simultaneously produce as many as 100 computerized forecasts by calculating multiple possible conditions or, in the parlance of Heliophysicists, parameters. Just as important, they will be able to do this quickly and use the information to provide alerts of space weather storms that could potentially be harmful to astronauts and NASA spacecraft.

"Space weather alerts are available now, but we want to make them better," said Michael Hesse, chief of Goddard's Space Weather Laboratory and the recently named director of the Center's Heliophysics Science Division.

"Ensemble forecasting will provide a distribution of arrival times, which will improve the reliability of forecasts. This is important. Society is relying more so than ever on space. Communications, navigation, electrical-power generation, all are all susceptible to space weather." Once it's implemented, "there will be nothing like this in the world. No one has done ensemble forecasting for space weather."

The state-of-the-art capability, which Hesse's group is implementing now and expects to complete within three years, couldn't come too soon, either.

Sun Growing Restless
Since the sun reached its solar minimum in 2008 - the period when the number of sunspots is lowest - it has begun to awaken from its slumber. On Aug. 4, the sun unleashed a near X-class solar flare that erupted near an Earth-facing sunspot.

Although flares don't always produce coronal mass ejections (CMEs) - gigantic bubbles of charged particles that can carry up to ten billion tons of matter and accelerate to several million miles per hour as they erupt from the sun's atmosphere and stream through interplanetary space - this one did.

The CME overtook two previous CMEs - all occurring within 48 hours - and combined into a triple threat. Luckily for Earthlings, the CMEs produced only a moderate geomagnetic storm when solar particles streamed down the field lines toward Earth's poles and collided with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. Even so, "it was the strongest storm in many years," said Antti Pulkkinen, one of the laboratory's chief forecasters.

However, the repercussions could be far worse in the future. As part of its 11-year cycle, the sun is entering solar maximum, the period of greatest activity.

It is expected to peak in 2013. During this time, more powerful CMEs, often associated with M- and X-class flare events, become more numerous and can affect any planet or spacecraft in its path. In the past, solar storms have disrupted power grids on Earth and damaged instrumentation on satellites. They can also be harmful to astronauts if they are not warned to take protective cover.

"No one knows exactly what the sun will do, Pulkkinen said. "We can't even tell in a week, let alone a year or two, what the sun will do. All we know is that the sun will be more active."

Given the expected uptick in activity, Hesse, Pulkkinen, and Yihua Zheng, another chief forecaster, were anxious to enhance their forecasting acumen. They partnered with the Space Radiation Analysis Group at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is responsible for ensuring that astronauts' exposure to deadly radiation remains below established safety levels, and won NASA funding to develop the Integrated Advanced Alert/Warning Systems for Solar Proton Events.

Weaknesses in Current System
"Ensemble forecasting holds the key" to an enhanced alert system," Hesse said. "We agreed that this was the way to go."

Currently, the laboratory is running one CME model - calculating one set of parameters - at a time. The parameters are derived from near real-time data gathered by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, among others. "But since all of these are scientific research missions, we have no guarantee of a continuous real-time data stream," Zheng said.

Furthermore, imperfections exist in the data. These imperfections grow over time, leading to forecasts that don't agree with the evolution of actual conditions. For NASA, the Air Force, and other organizations, which use Goddard's forecasts to decide whether steps are needed to protect space assets and astronauts, uncertainty is as unwelcome as the storm itself.

Ensemble forecasting, however, overcomes the weaknesses by allowing forecasters to tweak the conditions. "Generating different parameters is easy - just varying a little bit of all parameters involved in characterizing a CME, such as its speed, propagation direction, and angular extent," Zheng explained.

In essence, the multiple forecasts provide information on the different ways the CME can evolve over the next few hours. "We'll be able to characterize the uncertainties in our forecasts, which is almost as important as the forecast itself," Pulkkinen added.

The team has already installed new computer systems to run the varying calculations and hopes to develop the ability to generate more specialized forecasts.

"We recognize there is a huge gap in our current capability," Pulkkinen continued. "We certainly don't want to miss the solar maximum with this capability. We're really pushing the envelope to have it done. When we do, we'll be the first in the world to have it."

When this forecasting technique is verified and validated by NASA's Space Weather Laboratory, the capability will be made available to NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center, which is responsible for issuing national space weather alerts. NASA's goal to understand and track space weather activity will enable a greatly enhanced forecasting capability for U.S. interests.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Boulder CO (SPX) Jan 31, 2012 - The largest solar particle event since 2005 hit the Earth, Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft travelling in-between, allowing the onboard Radiation Assessment Detector to measure the radiation a human astronaut could be exposed to en route to the Red Planet.

On Sunday, a huge coronal mass ejection erupted from the surface of the sun, spewing a cloud of charged particles in our direction, causing a strong "S3" solar storm. A NASA Goddard Space Weather Lab animation of the CME illustrates how the disturbance impacts Earth, Mars and several spacecraft. Solar storms can affect the Earth's aurorae, satellites, air travel and GPS systems; no harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.

"We only have a few hours of data downloaded from the RAD so far, but we clearly see the event, said RAD Principal Investigator Don Hassler, science program director in the Space Studies Department at Southwest Research Institute.

The Mars Science Laboratory, launched Nov. 26, will land a sophisticated car-sized rover called Curiosity on the surface of the planet in August. Loaded with 10 instruments including RAD, Curiosity will traverse the landing site looking for the building blocks of life and characterizing factors that may influence life, such as the harsh radiation environment expected on Mars.

"This SPE encounter is particularly exciting in light of the alignment between the Earth, MSL and Mars right now and for the next few months. It will be very interesting to compare the RAD data, collected from inside the capsule, with the data from other spacecraft."

This event has also been seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, Geostationary Operational Environment Satellites, the Advanced Composition Explorer, and the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecraft in Earth orbit as well as the Solar Heliospheric Observatory flying between Earth and the sun.

"RAD was designed to characterize radiation levels on the surface of Mars, but an important secondary objective is measuring the radiation during the almost nine-month journey through interplanetary space to prepare for future human exploration," said Hassler.

"RAD is an important bridge between the science and exploration sides of NASA.

"Not only will this give us insight into the physics of these giant clouds, but like an astronaut, RAD is tucked inside the MSL 'spacecraft,'" Hassler continued.

"Measurements from RAD will give us insight about the shielding provided by spacecraft for future manned missions in deep space."

RAD will collect data nearly continuously during cruise and will downlink data every 24 hours. Positioned in the front-left corner of the rover, the instrument is about the size of a coffee can and weighs about three pounds, but has capabilities of an Earth-bound instrument nearly 10 times its size.

When MSL arrives at Mars, RAD will detect charged particles arriving from space and will measure neutrons and gamma rays coming from Mars' atmosphere above, or the surface material below, the rover.

SwRI, together with Christian Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, built RAD with funding from the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate and Germany's national aerospace research center, Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt.

The Mars Science Laboratory is a project of NASA's Science Mission Directorate. The mission is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech. The mission's rover was designed, developed and assembled at JPL.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 31, 2012 - The sun unleashed an X1.8 class flare that began at 1:12 PM ET on January 27, 2012 and peaked at 1:37. The flare immediately caused a strong radio blackout at low-latitudes, which was rated an R3 on NOAA's scale from R1-5.

The blackout soon subsided to a minor R1 storm. Models from NASA's Goddard Space Weather Center predict that the CME is traveling at over 1500 miles per second. It does not initially appear to be Earth-directed, but Earth may get a glancing blow.

Initial movies from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) look as though there was an eruption and coronal mass ejection (CME) associated with the event, and NOAA's GOES satellite also detected a solar energetic particle (SEP) event a half hour after the flare peak.

How these CMEs and SEPs form and evolve, as well as their association with the flare event itself will be studied in the coming hours and days as more data and movies from NASA's SDO, STEREO and SOHO instruments become available.

Mars-Bound Instrument Detects Solar Burst's Effects
Pasadena CA (JPL) - The largest solar particle event since 2005 has been detected by the radiation-monitoring instrument aboard the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, on its way from Earth to Mars.

The Radiation Assessment Detector, inside the mission's Curiosity rover tucked inside the spacecraft, is measuring the radiation exposure that could affect a human astronaut on a potential Mars mission.

It has measured an increase resulting from a Jan. 22 solar storm observed by other NASA spacecraft. No harmful effects to the Mars Science Laboratory have been detected from this solar event.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 27, 2012 - Solar flares are giant explosions on the sun that send energy, light and high speed particles into space. These flares are often associated with solar magnetic storms known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). While these are the most common solar events, the sun can also emit streams of very fast protons - known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events - and disturbances in the solar wind known as corotating interaction regions (CIRs).

All of these can produce a variety of "storms" on Earth that can - if strong enough - interfere with short wave radio communications, GPS signals, and Earth's power grid, among other things.

The amount of solar activity increases approximately every 11 years, and the sun is currently moving toward another solar maximum, likely in 2013. That means more flares will be coming, some small and some big enough to send their radiation all the way to Earth.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has devised categories for the flares and various storms. The biggest flares are known as "X-class flares" based on a classification system that divides solar flares according to their strength. The smallest ones are A-class (near background levels), followed by B, C, M, and X. Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, each letter represents a 10-fold increase in energy output. So an X is ten times an M and 100 times a C. Within each letter class there is a finer scale from 1 to 9.

C-class and smaller flares are too weak to noticeably affect Earth. M-class flares can cause brief radio blackouts at the poles and minor radiation storms that might endanger astronauts.

And then come the X-class flares. Although X is the last letter, there are flares more than 10 times the power of an X1, so X-class flares can go higher than 9. The most powerful flare measured with modern methods was in 2003, during the last solar maximum, and it was so powerful that it overloaded the sensors measuring it.

The sensors cut out at X15, but the flare was estimated to be as high as an X28.

The biggest X-class flares are by far the largest explosions in the solar system and are awesome to watch. Loops tens of times the size of Earth leap up off the sun's surface when the sun's magnetic fields cross over each other and reconnect. In the biggest events, this reconnection process can produce as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs.

As the Sun ramps up towards its next solar maximum, we are already seeing an increase in activity. The first X-class flare of the current solar cycle erupted on February 15, 2011, and there were more over the summer. On January 23, 2012, the sun unleashed an M8.7 flare accompanied by a CME and an SEP that created one of the strongest radiation storms since 2005.

If they're directed at Earth, such flares and associated solar events can create long lasting radiation storms that can harm satellites, communications systems, and even ground-based technologies and power grids.

NASA and NOAA - as well as the US Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) and others - keep a constant watch on the sun to monitor for X-class flares and their associated magnetic storms. With advance warning many satellites, spacecraft and technologies can be protected from the worst effects.

]]> Thu, 09 FEB 2012 08:59:22 AEST Washington (AFP) Jan 24, 2012 - Solar radiation from a massive sun storm -- the largest in nearly a decade -- collided with the Earth's atmosphere on Tuesday, prompting an airline to reroute flights and skywatchers to seek out spectacular light displays.

US carrier Delta Air Lines said it had adjusted flight routes for transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States to avoid problems caused by the radiation storm, a spokesman said.

NASA confirmed the coronal mass ejection (CME) began colliding with Earth's magnetic field around 10:00 AM (1500 GMT) Tuesday, adding that the storm was now being considered the largest since October 2003.

Radiation storms are not harmful to humans, on Earth at least, according to the US space agency. They can, however, affect satellite operations and short wave radio.

The storm's radiation, likely to continue bombarding Earth's atmosphere through Wednesday, and its possible disruption to satellite communications in the polar regions prompted the flight rerouting, airline officials said.

Atlanta-based Delta, the world's second largest airline, said "a handful" of routes had their journey adjusted "based on potential impact" of the solar storm on communications equipment, spokesman Anthony Black told AFP.

Routes from Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul took a more southerly route after the solar flare erupted on Sunday.

The airline said it would continue to monitor solar activity before return flights to their normal routes.

Due to the unusual intensity of the photons raining on Earth, the spectacular aurora borealis -- the stunning "Northern Lights" display -- which is often seen closer to the Arctic pole at this time of year, has been seen as far south as Scotland and northern England, and at lower latitudes in the United States.

The event started late Sunday with a moderate-sized solar flare that erupted right near the center of the Sun, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Space Weather Prediction Center.

"The flare itself was nothing spectacular, but it sent off a very fast coronal mass ejection traveling four million miles per hour (6.4 million kilometers per hour)," he told AFP.

Space weather watchers said the best aurora sightings are normally around midnight local time.

Rob Stammes, who runs the Lofoten Polar Light Centre in Lofoten, Norway said the CME's arrival Tuesday had produced a surge in ground currents outside his laboratory.

"This could be a happy day for many aurora watchers," he told aurora tracker website spaceweather.com

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