主要研究 今天

澳门葡京网赌游戏正向着太阳前进.

当新的 太阳轨道飞行器 2月初从美国宇航局肯尼迪航天中心发射升空, it will carry with it an instrument designed and built by researchers from the 主要研究 空间科学中心(SSC) to study the Earth’s closest star and its heliosphere — the bubble-like region of space that surrounds our solar system. 太阳轨道飞行器 will provide data close up to the sun to help scientists gain an even deeper understanding of the solar wind, solar eruptions and the sun’s magnetic field – all of these influence space weather and impact astronauts, 宇宙飞船, 卫星, 以及我们的通讯技术.

“The 太阳轨道飞行器 is unique from other missions in that it will focus on the higher latitudes of the sun and will have the ability to corotate with the sun and fix on points of interest for longer periods of time, 从而提供澳门葡京网赌游戏特定区域的更详细的信息,安托万内特·高尔文说, 联合国大学物理学教授和 N.H. 太空补助金协会. Galvin is the lead 主要研究 co-investigator for a subsection of one of the particle detectors on the 太阳轨道飞行器.

国际太阳轨道飞行器任务，由 欧洲空间局(ESA) 与 美国国家航空航天局这个项目已经筹备了十多年. 在那段时间里, 43名主要研究教员, 工作人员, and students assisted in the development of the time-of-flight subsection of the heavy ion sensor (HIS), 哪一个能探测到太阳风粒子，比如氧, 氮和碳, and provide data on their charged state to indicate what part of the sun they originate from.

HIS是联合国大学、美国西南研究所(united states Research Institute)和美国国立卫生研究院(nih)的合作项目.S. 首席研究员机构), 美国宇航局戈达德太空飞行中心, 密歇根大学, 以及伯尔尼大学, 瑞士, and is one portion of the solar wind analyzer instrument — one of 10 instruments aboard the 太阳轨道飞行器. The mission also boasts an extreme ultraviolet camera to detect temperature variations on the sun’s surface and a heliospheric imager used for tracking the propagation of coronal mass ejections through space.

大卫·海茨勒96年99年, SSC的研究工程师, provided simulations used in the design of the time-of-flight subsection of the HIS. He says that 主要研究 is uniquely poised to help out with the 太阳轨道飞行器 mission because of all the “in-house expertise” in designing and building time-of-flight space instruments for numerous missions, 包括Cluster和Cluster 2, 野山羊, 立体声, 以及其他即将开展的工作.

The SSC assembly lab and the Morse Hall machine shop helped to fabricate HIS components based on the designs from 主要研究 engineers. 通过在计算机模型上进行详尽的模拟, testing prototypes in vacuum conditions and running several sub-assembly stress tests, the team refined their design to ensure that the time-of-flight subsection would not only detect the proper particles, 但也能承受发射的压力.

“当我们面临挑战时, we got a group of experts together to brainstorm and we were able to work through the problems and find solutions — and that’s a good feeling,海茨勒说. This collaborative approach will come in handy if the HIS team encounters problems after launch and needs to troubleshoot any issues that arise, 他补充说.

Galvin is hopeful that the 太阳轨道飞行器 will build on the successes of previous missions to not only learn more about current solar activity, 但要预测即将到来的太阳风暴可能会影响人类和科技.

“This mission will ultimately help us understand the science involved in how the solar wind and its structures are created, how these structures evolve in interplanetary space over the distance from the sun to the Earth, and that can help us predict space weather and storms in the future and hopefully achieve true forecasting capabilities,她说。.

地球、海洋和空间研究所(EOS) 是联合国大学最大的研究企业, 由六个以跨学科为重点的中心组成, 对地球和气候系统的高影响力研究, 空间科学, 海洋环境, 海底的映射, 环境声学. 每年获得超过4300万美元的外部资金, EOS fosters an intellectual and scientific environment that advances visionary scholarship and leadership in world-class research and graduate education.