Space instruments manufactured by Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin have provided mankind’s first three-dimensional views of the sun as well as new information on the solar atmosphere, the company said Monday.
The data were collected as part of the Hinode and Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) missions.
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The Hinode mission is a joint project of NASA, Japan’s Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. The two-spacecraft STEREO mission is being done with NASA.
As part of Hinode, Lockheed optical equipment is tracking the relationship between the solar atmosphere and the sun’s magnetic field.
“We’ve known for some time that the solar interior is constantly ringing like a bell,” said Alan Title,a solar physicist at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center. “We’re now learning that the enormous cacophony is leaking out through the magnetic fields, and the acoustic waves are causing tremendous heating in the sun’s atmosphere.”
For the STEREO mission, Lockheed instruments are collecting data that will allow scientists to create three-dimensional views of the sun for the first time. Two spacecraft equipped with Lockheed optics were launched last year and are now gathering information about the sun’s surface.
The instruments will also provide images of solar features. Because the images are being taken from different angles, scientists will be able to determine their exact location on the sun.
Kei Koizumi, an expert on science budget policy at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said solar research like this is increasing in importance as concerns about climate change grow.
“NASA has a varied portfolio of studying lots of bodies in the solar system,” he said. “Solar research is especially important.”
