According to a statement made by NASA on Thursday (local): “NASA has selected two science missions, the Multi-slit Solar Explorer, (MUSE), and HelioSwarm, to improve our understanding of the Sun’s dynamics, the Sun-Earth link, and the constantly changing environment in space,”
These missions will give us deeper insight into the universe and provide critical information to protect satellites, astronauts, and communications signals like GPS.
“MUSE and HelioSwarm provide new and deeper insights into the solar atmosphere, space weather,” said Thomas Zurbuchen in a statement. He is an associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters.
He said, “These missions not just extend the science of other heliophysics missions — but they also provide an unique perspective and a novel approach for understanding the mysteries of the star.”
Scientists will be able to use the MUSE mission to understand the mechanisms that drive the heating of the Sun’s corona, and the eruptions that occur in the outermost region of the Sun that are responsible for space weather. The mission will provide greater insight into the physics behind the solar atmosphere. It will employ a powerful instrument called a multislit spectrometer, which can observe the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation and capture the highest resolution images of both the corona as well as the solar transition area.
The NASA statement also states that the mission will provide complementary observations from heliophysics research, such as the Extreme UltraViolet Spectroscopic Telescope or ground-based observatories.
“MUSE will help fill critical gaps in knowledge pertaining Sun-Earth connection,” said Nicola Fox director of the Heliophysics Division NASA Headquarters.
He stated that the mission would provide more information on space weather and will complement a host other missions in the heliophysics fleet.
The HelioSwarm mission, a constellation of nine spacecraft, will capture the first in-space multiscale measurements of fluctuations and motions in the solar wind. This is known as solar wind Turbulence. The heliosphere, the Sun’s outermost atmosphere layer, covers a vast area of the solar system. The heliosphere is home to solar winds that travel through it. Their interactions with the planet magnetospheres and disruptions like coronal mass ejections can affect their turbulence.
“The technical innovation of HelioSwarm’s small satellites operating together in a constellation gives the unique ability to study turbulence evolution in the sun’s solar wind,” said Peg Lucie, deputy director of Heliophysics Division.
Harlan Spence, University of New Hampshire’s principal investigator for the HelioSwarm mission, is it’s principal investigator. The mission’s budget stands at USD 250 million. According to the statement, NASA’s Ames Research Center will manage the project.
(Only headline and photo of this report might have been reworked slightly by Business Standard staff; the rest is auto-generated from syndicated feeds.
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