NASA Telescope Captures Sharpest Images of Sun's Corona

July 20, 2012

Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Janet L. Anderson
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
janet.l.anderson@nasa.gov

RELEASE: 12-246

NASA TELESCOPE CAPTURES SHARPEST IMAGES OF SUN'S CORONA

WASHINGTON -- A telescope launched July 11 aboard a NASA sounding
rocket has captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of the
sun's million-degree atmosphere called the corona. The clarity of the
images can help scientists better understand the behavior of the
solar atmosphere and its impacts on Earth's space environment.

"These revolutionary images of the sun demonstrate the key aspects of
NASA's sounding rocket program, namely the training of the next
generation of principal investigators, the development of new space
technologies, and scientific advancements," said Barbara Giles,
director for NASA's Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in
Washington.

Launched from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the
58-foot-tall sounding rocket carried NASA's High Resolution Coronal
Imager (Hi-C) telescope. Weighing 464 pounds, the 10-foot-long
payload took 165 images during its brief 620-second flight. The
telescope focused on a large active region on the sun with some
images revealing the dynamic structure of the solar atmosphere in
fine detail. These images were taken in the extreme ultraviolet
wavelength. This higher energy wavelength of light is optimal for
viewing the hot solar corona.

"We have an exceptional instrument and launched at the right time,"
said Jonathan Cirtain, senior heliophysicist at NASA's Marshall Space
Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. "Because of the intense solar
activity we're seeing right now, we were able to clearly focus on a
sizeable, active sunspot and achieve our imaging goals."

The telescope acquired data at a rate of roughly one image every 5
seconds. Its resolution is approximately five times more detailed
than the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument flying aboard
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). For comparison, AIA can see
structures on the sun's surface with the clarity of approximately 675
miles and observes the sun in 10 wavelengths of light. Hi-C can
resolve features down to roughly 135 miles, but observed the sun in
just one wavelength of light.

The high-resolution images were made possible because of a set of
innovations on Hi-C's optics array. Hi-C's mirrors are approximately
9 1/2 inches across, roughly the same size as the SDO instrument's.
The telescope includes some of the finest mirrors ever made for
space-based instrumentation. The increase in resolution of the images
captured by Hi-C is similar to making the transition in television
viewing from a cathode ray tube TV to high definition TV.

Initially developed at Marshall, the final mirror configuration was
completed with inputs from partners at the Smithsonian Astrophysical
Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Mass., and a new manufacturing
technique developed in coordination with L-3Com/Tinsley Laboratories
of Richmond, Calif.

The high-quality optics were aligned to determine the spacing between
the optics and the tilt of the mirror with extreme accuracy.
Scientists and engineers from Marshall, SAO, and the University of
Alabama in Huntsville worked to complete alignment of the mirrors,
maintaining optic spacing to within a few ten-thousandths of an inch.


NASA's suborbital sounding rockets provide low-cost means to conduct
space science and studies of Earth's upper atmosphere. In addition,
they have proven to be a valuable test bed for new technologies for
future satellites or probes to other planets.

Launched in February 2010, SDO is an advanced spacecraft studying the
sun and its dynamic behavior. The spacecraft provides images with
clarity 10 times better than high definition television and provides
more comprehensive science data faster than any solar observing
spacecraft in history.

Partners associated with the development of the Hi-C telescope also
include Lockheed Martin's Solar Astrophysical Laboratory in Palo
Alto, Calif.; the University of Central Lancashire in Lancashire,
England; and the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of
Sciences in Moscow.

For more information about SDO, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sdo

For more information about NASA's sounding rocket program, visit:

http://sites.wff.nasa.gov/code810/

For more information about Hi-C, visit:

http://go.nasa.gov/NBwmf6


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