05/05/2024
Imagine that for the first time a rocket travels with a telescope outside the Earth and captures images, and other data, of a solar explosion. For this, we must wait for the precise moment of launch and try to know in advance when the Sun will have an explosion, although it is very difficult to anticipate this phenomenon.
That’s what the project consisted of. Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (Foxsi), the program’s suborbital rocket payload Low Cost Access to Space of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa), which seeks to test technology that has never been in space and that managed to send two rockets with telescopes for the first time at the precise moment when a solar explosion occurred.
The team of more than 90 people had been working on this since 2018, but only now did they manage to capture the explosion. The Colombian – born in Bogotá – participates in this project. Juan Camilo Buitrago Casasphysicist and master in Astronomy from the National University of Colombia (Unal), who currently works in California assigned to the University of Berkeley.
The rockets they launched were the Foxsi-4 and the High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) at the Poker Flat Research Range launch facility in Alaska. There Foxsi-4 sat ready on the launch pad for two weeks waiting for the perfect opportunity to capture a solar flare. It took off at 2:13 in the afternoon on April 17.
“We had already launched these rockets three other timesbut we had always limited ourselves to launching them at the missile ranch, which is the largest military base on US territory in New Mexico, very close to where they tested the first nuclear bomb and there we could only launch on a certain day and time, so We couldn’t choose what the Sun was going to be like. This time it was different, we wanted to capture a solar flare for the first time with space telescopes so we focused on launching them at a time when we were sure, due to different variables, that there was a solar flare. ”says Juan Camilo Buitrago Casas.
The simple reason why a solar explosion has never been captured is that Scientists cannot predict when they will occur and the physicist makes the simile that they are like earthquakes.
“That means that not only did we have to work on the instrument — they calibrated the optics and other parts of the telescope — but we also had to anticipate large solar flares in order to capture one of them.”
The two telescopes sent to space – developed with the maximum solar observation technology of the moment (in X-rays and ultraviolet) – made it possible to obtain data from the solar event, a historic feat. Now, with the collection of more closely a terabyte (1,000 GB or 1 billion bytes) of X-ray and ultraviolet information captured by Foxsi-4 and Hi-C, these will be analyzed by the mission’s scientific team. Why is it important to capture this?
The feat of ‘hunting’ her
“It’s as if for a second you had the latest version of the iPhone and you could take photos of the Sun,” says the physicist.
And, as this is the first time that a solar explosion has been captured with this technology, scientists hope to learn more about what happens inside the Sun when an explosion occurs, since this phenomenon is an explosive release of magnetic energy that is can see across the entire electromagnetic spectrum.
“Such an explosion can generate a coronal mass ejection, that is, a cloud of incandescent plasma that travels through interplanetary space and can potentially impact the Earth. An impact of these characteristics could affect satellite communications, and therefore bring huge economic losses,” he explains.
If solar flares impact Earth—which happens frequently— what is in danger, says the scientist, is satellite technology because they are not inside the atmosphere nor do they have a magnetic field to protect them, and these rays can ‘scorch’ them. However, governments invest money in technology to prevent satellites from being damaged.
“Usually these particles are electrons and ions. These take one to two days to get here. So there is enough time.”
Whats Next? Juan Camilo explains that it may take up to two years to analyze the entire volume of information and see what new sciences come out of it. “There were 5 minutes of observation and this gives us resolution in temporal, central and spatial aspects of the information obtained. It is very premature to say what will come of it, but it will surely be very interesting.”
For example, he mentions that one of the fields on Earth that can benefit is plasma technologys, since uses such as the production of highly efficient clean energy or plasmas in medicine are currently being explored to make sterilizations more efficient or to treat skin cancer.
Is the threat of a solar Superstorm growing?
An article recently published in Scientific American claims that the threat of a solar superstorm is increasing and we are not prepared for something like this as it could burn out most of our electronic devices. Given this possibility, the Colombian physicist adds that governments are prepared for something like this and there is financing from them.
“A geomagnetic storm occurs when material from a solar explosion flows toward Earth and that material interacts with the atmosphere. and the Earth’s magnetosphere. It could happen, yes, but the consequences will not be very serious because we know how to handle this type of phenomenon,” the physicist points out.
Finally, the researcher highlights the importance of multidisciplinarity in this type of historical events, since it was a joint work between physicists, engineers, administrators and other professionals from around the world who will continue to focus on the analysis of space travel data.
