Such mirror focuses the light on the UV detector. The light of the corona, instead, reaches the M1 primary mirror and reflects on the M2 secondary mirror. The light of the solar disk coming from the entrance port is rejected outwards by the M0 mirror. The optical design is due to the need to minimize the entrance port of the instrument, aimed at reducing the incoming thermal flow. METIS is a coronagraph with an external occulter. The remote sensing instruments, instead, will send stunning pictures of the solar characteristics with unprecedented resolution and will provide new information on the cause of the cyclical nature of solar spots and the onset of flares.Īmongst Solar Orbiter’s scientific load instruments, INAF, with the support of the ASI and the contributions of Germany and Czech Republic, manufactured the METIS coronagraph and the SWA (Solar Wind Analyzer)’s Data Processing Unit. The highly-elliptic operational orbit will lead the probe less than 43 million kilometers away from the Sun – less distant than Mars, the most internal planet.ĭuring the seven year-mission, the in-situ instruments will measure the plasma of solar wind, the electromagnetic fields and energy particles in a close enough area to the Sun, where they are still relatively unpolluted and their properties haven’t been modified by the subsequent transport and propagation processes. It will take less than two years to reach the operational orbit around the Sun, and the trajectory will be modified through a flyby to Earth and Venus. The launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, will be aboard an American launcher. A ninth instrument will be provided by the ESA, while the NASA will provide the remaining instrument and an additional detector. Eight of those instruments will be provided by PIs through national fundings from the Member States of the ESA. The probe will have 10 instruments on-board to observe the surface of the Sun and study the changes happening in the solar wind emitted at high speed from our star. Solar Orbiter will allow, for the first time, to study the Sun at a distance of 0,28 UA (1 UA is the distance between Earth and the Sun) and observing the polar regions from an orbit outside the ecliptic plane. The launch is scheduled for February 2020. Solar Orbiter is the first class-M mission selected in the framework of the ESA Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 scientific programme.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |