UNLOCKING THE SECRETS OF THE SUN�[AURORA : HACKING THE SUN SECRETS]

WHAT IS THE SUN?

The sun is one out of billion stars in the universe, the specialty of the sun is, it’s the host star in the solar system which our Earth is in, it’s the main source of energy to the organisms of the Earth. Formed over 4 and a half billion years ago, the Sun is a main sequence star belonging to G2V category. It is a huge sphere made up of mostly ionized gas. It helps in the photosynthesis of green plants and is the ultimate source of all food and fossil fuels on Earth.

The sun is consisting of six regions, the core, the radiative zone and convection zone are the main parts and in the exterior there is the photosphere, chromosphere, solar transition region and the corona.

The sun’s surface has a temperature about 6000K.

IMPORTANCE OF OBSERVATION AND MISSIONS CARRIED OUT ABOUT THE SUN

Get knowledge about Space Weather and it’s effects on Earth

The main importance of observations carried out about the Sun is finding out how the sun effects the space weather and how that effects on space weather effects the Earth.

HOW HELIOPHYSICS MISSIONS HELP IN GETTING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SPACE WEATHER�

What is Space Weather?

Even though space is devoid of any matter, the solar wind from our sun fills space with a small amount of particles and plasma, This along with other phenomena like coronal mass ejections influences the nature of space and effect the magnetic fields of the Earth and other planets. These kinds of occurrences can effect the spacecrafts out of our atmosphere and interfere with satellites, radio communications and GPS signals in space as well as sometimes power grids on Earth.

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Heliophysics Missions and it’s contribution towards Space Weather study

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These missions are placed throughout our solar system to get a better understanding of the space weather and sun’s effects on it. USA deployed a separate program called the US National Space Weather Program to study and get a knowledge about space weather.

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The to be launched Artemis and Gateway missions are main examples for missions which will contribute greatly in studying about space weather. The Heliophysics Division is providing the Lunar Gateway with radiation and space weather instruments. Except for these future missions ongoing and past missions have also contributed to finding out about space weather, some significant missions out of these are the Parker Solar Probe, SOHO and Trace

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HELIOPHYSICS MISSIONS

There are many Heliophysics missions launched throughout the years to study about the workings of our sun and how they might effect the space weather and the Earth. And there are more missions to be launched in the future too.

Some of the main Heliophysics missions launched until now are as follows

-PARKER SOLAR ORBITER

-SOHO

-TRACE

-Solar Orbiter

PARKER SOLAR PROBE

• Parker Solar Probe is one of the most important heliophysics missions launched so far. Launched on the 18^th of August 2018, this mission is still active up to today with a expected mission duration of 7 years.
• Parker Solar Exploration is an unusual and memorable mission to explore what the last region of the solar system can be viewed from a spacecraft: the Sun's atmosphere, the outer corona. When it is finally close to 3.7 million miles from the surface of the sun, the Parker Solar Probe repeatedly the environment near the sun's rays, revolutionizing our knowledge and understanding of the origin and evolution of coronal warming and solar winds.
• Equipped with a lot of scientific equipment this probe made a lot of new discoveries about the sun and the surroundings and space phenomenon and space weather and their effects on Earth etc.

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Scientific Instruments in the Parker Solar Probe

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The Parker Solar Probe mission was launched with some main mission goals such as;

=>Trace the flow of energy that heats the corona and accelerates the solar wind

=>Determine the structures and dynamics of the magnetic fields at the sources of solar wind

=>Determine what mechanisms accelerate and transport energetic particles

To accomplish these goals the probe is equipped with many scientific equipment. For example,

• SWEAP - Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation
• SPC - Solar Probe Cup
• SPAN - Solar Probe Analyzers
• WISPR - Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe
• FIELDS - Electromagnetic Fields Investigation
• IS☉IS‒EPI - Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun Energetic

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Discoveries by the Parker Solar Probe

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• New information about the behavior of the material and particles that speed away from the Sun.

• NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched to space, becoming the closest-ever spacecraft to the Sun. With cutting-edge scientific instruments to measure the environment around the spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe has completed three of 24 planned passes through never-before-explored parts of the Sun's atmosphere, the corona. On Dec. 4, 2019, four new papers in the journal Nature describe what scientists have learned from this unprecedented exploration of our star — and what they look forward to learning next.

Some special facts about the Parker Solar Probe

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The first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, Honoring nonagenarian physicist EUGENE NEWMAN PARKER, professor at Chicago University.

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A memory card containing the names of over 1.1 million people was mounted on a plaque and installed below the spacecraft's high-gain antenna on 18 May 2018. The card also contains photos of Parker and a copy of his 1958 scientific paper predicting important aspects of solar physics.

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SOHO- SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC OBSERVATORY

• SOHO is another important mission launched by NASA and ESA on December 2,1995 for sun observation with the purpose of studying the sun inside out from the internal structure, to the extensive outer atmosphere to the solar winds which blow across the solar system.
• Launched in the late 1990s this sun observation craft has been photographing dynamic flames and coronal mass ejections for almost 2 decades.
• Goals of the missions

=>Investigation of the outer layer of the sun, which consists of the chromosphere, transition region and the corona

=>Making observations of solar wind and associated phenomenon the vicinity of L1.

=>Probing the interior structure of the Sun

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Scientific Instruments in SOHO

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To accomplish the above mentioned goals, SOHO is equipped with many scientific equipment.

• CDS- Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer
• CELIAS - Charge, Element, Isotope Analysis
• COSTEP - Suprathermal & Energetic Particle Analyzer
• EIT - Extreme UV Imaging Telescope
• ERNE - Energetic and Relativistic Nuclei and Electron experiment
• GOLF - Global Oscillations at Low Frequencies
• LASCO - Large Angle Spectrometer Coronagraph
• MDI - Michelson Doppler Imager
• SUMER - Solar UV Measurement of Emitted Radiation
• SWAN - Solar Wind Anisotropies
• UVCS - UV Coronagraph and Spectrometer
• VIRGO - Variability of Solar Irradiance 

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Discoveries by SOHO

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• The SOHO observed that the sun shines brighter as the sun spot activity increases, and analyzed the element coming through the solar wind as the air currents flow down the surface of the sun-the continuous flow of the sun’s blood into space.
• Perhaps it’s most important discovery is the study of how coronal mass ejections create a “highway” in space for energetic particles to pass through

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Other special facts about SOHO

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• SOHO carries and instrument called 'Coronograph'that uses a solid disk, to block out the Sun's bright face, revealing the much fainter outer atmosphere, the corona. Scientists use these images of the corona to study how this part of the atmosphere changes and to track occasional explosions of material from the Sun, called coronal mass ejections. SOHO's vantage point between the Sun and Earth, about a million miles from Earth, gives it a constant view of the Sun's atmosphere.

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TRACE- TRANSITION REGION AND CORONAL EXPLORER

• Launched on the 2^nd of April, 1998, this probe was designed to investigate the relationships between the fine scale magnetic fields and associated plasma structures of the sun
• The main focus of TRACE is to observe the delicate structure of the coronal loops low in the solar atmosphere
• Goals of the mission

=>Observe the evolution of magnetic field structures from the solar interior of the corona

=>Study the heating mechanisms of the outer solar atmosphere

=>Investigate the triggers and onset of solar flares and coronal mass ejections

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Discoveries and special facts of the TRACE mission

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• First mission to an entire cycle of solar activity, studying the sun at both its turbulent maximum and demure minimum

SOLAR ORBITER

• A heliophysics mission launched by NASA and ESA in collaboration as recently as February 2020, with the main purpose of finding out how the Sun creates and controls the heliosphere. To find out about this The Solar Orbiter measures solar wind plasma, field, wave and energy particles travelling nearly three quarters of the previously recorded Helios 1 and 2
• Goals of the mission

=>To find what drives the solar wind and where does the coronal magnetic field originate from

=>To find how the solar transients drive heliospheric variability

=>To find how solar eruptions produce energetic particle radiation that fills the heliosphere

=>To find how does the solar dynamo work and drive connections between the Sun and the heliosphere

Scientific Instruments in Solar Orbiter

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To fulfill the above mentioned the goals the spacecraft is equipped with several scientific instruments;

• Energetic Particle Detector (EPD)
• Magnetometer (MAG)
• Radio and Plasma Waves sensor (RPW)
• Solar Wind Plasma Analyser (SWA)

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The remote-sensing instruments are :

• Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI),
• Coronagraph (METIS)
• Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI)
• Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI)
• Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE)
• X-ray Spectrometer/ Telescope (STIX)

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WHAT KIND OF THINGS WE HAVE FOUND AND OBTAINED SO FROM HELIOPHYSICS MISSIONS AND PROPOSALS FOR FUTURE MISSIONS AND WHAT BENEFITS THEY WILL BRING

• From the Heliophysics missions which have been launched by many space agencies such as NASA and ESA, many significant and important discoveries have been made about the Sun, how it affects Space Weather and all in all how all of these effect Earth.
• By finding out these information we can develop the knowledge and capability to detect and predict extreme conditions in space to protect life and society and to safeguard exploration beyond Earth.

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Eventhough we have already found an immense amount of things and new knowledge from Heliophysics missions, there are still more things to be discovered about our Sun and the surrounding of the Sun in our solar system along with further studies about space weather. To find out about these things many mission should be proposed in the future. One of the missions like this is the Artemis and Lunar Gateway, eventhough they aren’t missions launched with the main focus on the Sun they will play a significant part in discovering further about the Sun and it’s surroundings.

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As for future missions, they should be equipped with technologies far more advanced than the missions of now. With the advancement of technology and equipment in the present, the future missions will be able to get a closer approach to our Sun without being damaged by it’s harmful radiation and solar flares.