NASA to launch 3-D mission to study Sun
NASA plans to launch on Wednesday a 3-D mission to study the Sun, using twin satellites in mirror orbits to trace the fiery star's streams of energy and matter to Earth.
By Agencies |
WASHINGTON: NASA plans to launch on Wednesday a 3-D mission to study the Sun, using twin satellites in mirror orbits to trace the fiery star's streams of energy and matter to Earth.
"We are at the dawning of a new age of solar observations," Russ Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory said at a NASA news conference.
The two-year Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission will be the first to view the sun from two separate vantage points outside Earth's orbit.
The nearly identical twin spacecraft will act like a pair of human eyes, each picking up data that is correlated, with data from observatories on the ground and in low-Earth orbit, into a third-dimension vision of the Sun and its influences.
"We're going to be viewing things in a new dimension for us," Howard said.
The STEREO solar observatories are scheduled to launch today aboard a Boeing rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
Howard said STEREO also was unique because it will see "broadside" the entire relationship between the sun and Earth, some 150 million kilometres apart.
And, he said, "for the first time we will be able to measure optically what the other instruments on STEREO ... are seeing in their instruments."
Scientists of four European countries are participating in the mission: Belgium, Britain, France and Germany.
"We are at the dawning of a new age of solar observations," Russ Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory said at a NASA news conference.
The two-year Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) mission will be the first to view the sun from two separate vantage points outside Earth's orbit.
The nearly identical twin spacecraft will act like a pair of human eyes, each picking up data that is correlated, with data from observatories on the ground and in low-Earth orbit, into a third-dimension vision of the Sun and its influences.
"We're going to be viewing things in a new dimension for us," Howard said.
The STEREO solar observatories are scheduled to launch today aboard a Boeing rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.
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Howard said STEREO also was unique because it will see "broadside" the entire relationship between the sun and Earth, some 150 million kilometres apart.
And, he said, "for the first time we will be able to measure optically what the other instruments on STEREO ... are seeing in their instruments."
Scientists of four European countries are participating in the mission: Belgium, Britain, France and Germany.
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