A Space & astronomy forum. SpaceBanter.com

Go Back   Home » SpaceBanter.com forum » Others » Misc
Site Map Home Authors List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Web Partners

Scientists Report First-Ever 3D Observations of Solar Storms Using Ulysses Spacecraft



 
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old November 17th 03, 04:28 AM
Ron Baalke
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Scientists Report First-Ever 3D Observations of Solar Storms Using Ulysses Spacecraft


Bell Labs
Lucent Technologies

For more information, reporters may contact:

Saswato Das
Lucent Technologies
(908) 582 4824


Gale Scott
New Jersey Institute of Technology
(973) 596 3438


FOR RELEASE FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2003

Scientists report first-ever 3-D observations of solar storms using Ulysses
spacecraft

New Jersey Institute of Technology/Bell Labs physicist Louis Lanzerotti
participates in international team that studied the unquiet sun when it was most
active and found interesting phenomena

Newark, NJ -- The sun's surface is a violent and turbulent place, where a fiery
tempest always blows. Scientists are reporting in the journal Science today that
they have finally succeeded in getting a good three-dimensional view of it.

"The sun is huffing and puffing and blowing off steam," said NJIT/Bell Labs
physicist Louis Lanzerotti, a member of an international team that used the
Ulysses spacecraft to make the first-ever 3-D study of our parent star during
solar maximum, the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle. "Ulysses gave us a
chance to observe the sun from unique vantage points to better understand solar
storms and their consequences."

Scientists have been trying to understand solar weather for years, in an effort
to better predict terrestrial consequences of solar storms. Solar storms
sometimes severely disrupt wireless telephone calls, satellite communications
and electric power grids on Earth.

Ulysses, launched in 1990 by the shuttle Discovery as a joint mission of NASA
and the European Space Agency, has an orbit that takes it over the solar poles,
giving scientists a chance to look at the sun from all angles.

"No other spacecraft can do that," said Lanzerotti, a solar physicist who
divides his time between Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, which he joined in 1965
and where he is now a consultant, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology,
where he is a distinguished research professor at the Center for Solar
Terrestrial Research. "Many space missions have observed the sun near its
equator, but only Ulysses has traveled from the solar equator to above the sun's
polar caps."

Ulysses began its first solar orbit in 1992 and completed it in 1998, a period
when solar activity was at a minimum. But during the second orbit, begun in
1998, the sun was at its most turbulent.

The scientists report that, during this period, huge explosions on the sun
hurled vast amounts of solar material into space. Called coronal mass ejections,
since the sun's outermost layer -- the corona -- throws them off, these
swirling, boiling plumes travel out from the sun and are thought to be caused by
the severest of solar gales.

"We just had a coronal mass ejection last week," Lanzerotti noted. "These are
some of the most violent phenomena associated with the sun. We were able to look
at a few that happened around the recent solar maximum."

The team also got to observe the solar wind -- the stream of charged particles
that are emitted by the sun. The solar wind blows out a giant bubble called the
heliosphere within the interstellar medium, the dilute gas and dust that fills
the space between stars. The sun's influence extends far beyond the orbits of
the outer planets and the vast reservoir of periodic comets known as the Kuiper
Belt because the solar wind fills the heliosphere and exerts an outward pressure
on the interstellar medium. (The boundary between the heliosphere and the
interstellar medium is the true edge of the solar system, a place where a lot of
interesting physical phenomena take place. Last week, a separate team of
scientists, of which Lanzerotti is also a member, reported in the journal Nature
that Voyager 1 has reached the edge of the solar system.)

Data from Ulysses show that the solar wind originates in holes in the sun's
corona, and the speed of the solar wind varies inversely with coronal temperature.

"This was completely unexpected," said Lanzerotti. "Theorists had predicted the
opposite. Now all models of the sun and the solar wind will have to explain this
observation."

Another surprising finding based on Ulysses' data is that the sun's magnetic
field originates from a magnet that seems to be perpendicular to the sun's axis
of rotation (instead of being parallel to it, as is the case with Earth).

"At solar maximum, the sun's polar cap magnetic fields reverse direction or
sign," said Edward Smith of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab at the California
Institute of Technology, who is the US project scientist for the Ulysses
mission. "Inward fields become outward and vice versa. Ulysses observations show
that during this reversal, the Sun's magnetic poles are located near the solar
equator instead of in the polar caps."

The sun has a powerful magnetic field -- the needle of a compass placed on the
sun's surface would be deflected so strongly that it would require Herculean
strength to push it back. It is thought that solar activity is strongly related
to changes in the sun's magnetic field.

"We knew that the sun's magnetic field was dynamic and variable," said
Lanzerotti. "But this shows that we still have a lot of understanding to do. No
one really knows how it is formed and why it changes as it does."

Other members of the scientific team we R.G. Marsden (European project
scientist) and M. Landgraf of the European Space Agency in the Netherlands; A.
Balogh of Imperial College, London; G. Gloeckler of the University of Maryland;
J. Geiss of the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland; D. J.
McComas of Southwest Research Institute; R.B. McKibben of the University of New
Hampshire; R. J. MacDowall of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and N. Krupp and
H. Krueger of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany.

The team's paper, "The Sun and Heliosphere at Solar Maximum," appears in the
November 14, 2003 issue of Science on page 1165.

About NJIT

NJIT, located in Newark, New Jersey, is a public, scientific and technological
research university enrolling more than 8,800 students. The university offers
bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees to students in 80 degree programs
throughout its six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School of
Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert
Dorman Honors College and College of Computing Sciences. The division of
continuing professional education offers adults eLearning, off campus degrees
and short courses. Expertise and research initiatives include architecture and
building science, applied mathematics, biomedical engineering, environmental
engineering and science, information technology, manufacturing, materials,
microelectronics, multimedia, telecommunications, transportation and solar
astrophysics. NJIT ranks in the top tier of U.S. News & World Report's list of
national doctoral universities.

About Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs

Bell Labs is the leading source of new communications technologies. It has
generated more than 30,000 patents since 1925 and has played a pivotal role in
inventing or perfecting key communications technologies, including transistors,
digital networking and signal processing, lasers and fiber-optic communications
systems, communications satellites, cellular telephony, electronic switching of
calls, touch-tone dialing, and modems. Bell Labs scientists have received six
Nobel Prizes in Physics, nine U.S. National Medals of Science and eight U.S.
National Medals of Technology(. For more information about Bell Labs, visit its
Web site at
http://www.bell-labs.com

Lucent Technologies (NYSE: LU), headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., USA, designs
and delivers networks for the world's largest communications service providers.
Backed by Bell Labs research and development, Lucent relies on its strengths in
mobility, optical, data and voice networking technologies as well as software
and services to develop next-generation networks. The company's systems,
services and software are designed to help customers quickly deploy and better
manage their networks and create new, revenue-generating services that help
businesses and consumers. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its
Web site at
http://www.lucent.com




 




Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
PDF (Planetary Distance Formula) explains DW 2004 / Quaoar and Kuiper Belt hermesnines Astronomy Misc 10 February 27th 04 03:14 AM
Solar Electrons, Auroras Associated With Recent Geomagnetic Storms Ron Baalke Science 0 December 11th 03 08:29 PM
Voyager Spacecraft Approaching Solar System's Final Frontier Ron Baalke Misc 0 November 5th 03 07:56 PM
Solar Wind Make Waves; Killer Electrons Go Surfing Ron Baalke Misc 0 September 10th 03 05:37 PM
ESA Sees Stardust Storms Heading For Solar System Ron Baalke Science 0 August 20th 03 08:10 PM


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 11:15 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.6.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Copyright ©2004-2024 SpaceBanter.com.
The comments are property of their posters.