NASA to launch solar observatory to unravel secrets of the Sun

New York, February 10 -- NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is expected to unravel secrets of the Sun, is to launch today.

Designed to provide scientists with a torrent

of data regarding the sun, the observatory will acquire detailed images of the star to try to understand it better.

NASA said that the observatory, termed the satellite for the information age, will return 150 million bits of data per second and help to answer questions about the Sun's magnetic field.

“Understanding solar variability is crucial to our modern way of life, which depends on it,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, a program scientist for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission.

SDO will launch from Florida
The observatory, known as SDO, is scheduled to launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

“Our big goal is to learn how to predict what the sun is going to do,” said Dean Pesnell, SDO project scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

“And I'm interested, scientifically, in predicting what's going to happen a year or 10 years from now.”

More about the SDO and its components
The SDO will gather data about the activity on the sun. With the help of SDO, scientists will also be warned of imminent danger to the solar system.

SDO carries three scientific instruments, including the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, which is a set of four telescopes that return eight images every 10 seconds. Each image packs more than 4000 pixels.

The second instrument, known as the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, uses spectrographs to break down the sun's extreme UV light.

However, Pesnell is most excited about the third instrument.

“The one I think is the coolest is the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager. The instrument monitors magnetic flux and takes helioseismology readings, tracking the propagation of sound waves across the sun's surface.

“It looks amazingly like ocean waves, if you can imagine looking down on an ocean and seeing waves just going in all directions. Well, if you study those waves you can infer what's going on inside the sun,” he said.

The instrument will also be able to measure the magnetic field's vector anywhere on the visible face of the sun. This will allow scientists to gauge electric currents running through the solar corona.