by When it comes to tools, the more they are used, the less reliable they can get.
And, sure enough, while the Large Angle Coronagraph and Spectrometric Experiment (LASCO) instrument on NASA and the European Space Agencyand SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft did an excellent job of providing us with images during the recent powerful geomagnetic solar stormshe is getting old.
A coronagraph a specialized instrument designed to light the the sun so that researchers can get a glimpse of the hot, thin and outermost layer of the star called the corona. Space weather forecasters, therefore, can use coronagraphs to locate them solar flares coming from and accompanying sunspots coronal mass ejections (CMEs). However, for now, LASCO is on its own i space as there is no back-up coronagraph instrument available to scientists to monitor solar activity.
“Coronograph images are critical for us to detect the CME, measure it, put the information into a model, and from the model predict if it has an impact World,” Bill Murtagh, program coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), told Space.com “The coronagraph we rely on (LASCO) is often unavailable because it’s a research instrument. It’s one point of failure, so if it’s gone tomorrow, we’d be in) . a bad situation.”
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The only other technology out there that studies solar CMEs is NASA technology Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)but of the two spacecraft involved in this mission, only one is still operational and rarely Passes between the Earth and the Sun.
SOHO which was launched into space in December 1995 and became operational in April 1996. On it is the LASCO instrument, which contains three coronagraphs that take pictures of the sun’s corona. The main purpose of the mission was to conduct experimental research and not to provide real-time updates on solar activity. So the incoming data is not continuous, and the aging instrument can see when activity is taking place, but it cannot characterize exactly what is going on.
The below data links from LASCO via NASA’s Deep Space Network it also creates holes to tell the story of the sun, to be fair, as there can be gaps in the data of up to eight times or more time. This delay can cause problems in predicting the arrival times of CMEs and alerting forecasters if there are multiples following an initial flare. The instrument has also taken a beating over the past 20 years or so in operation due to solar activity rising from the sun, especially when it comes to its solar panels. Energetic particles continue to degrade these panels and scientists say a recent check of the instruments shows they only have enough power to last until 2026.
Whether LASCO goes offline permanently or temporarily, given its age and limited lifespan, scientists remain concerned about its reliability.
“Imagine if that happened during the solar storms, we would be blind to what was coming to us. The coronagraph is our early warning detection system,” Elsayed Talaat, NOAA Director. Office of Space Weather Observations at the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS), said Space.com. “As we see these storms coming from the sun, [coronagraphs] tell us something big is coming our way and we input the characteristics of that massive coronal event into our models and we’ll play them out to see if there’s an impact here.”
Next month, when the NOAA’s A GOES-U satellite launches into spaceon board will be the Naval Research Laboratory Compact Coronagraph-1 (CCOR-1). This will be the first operational coronagraph for the US as managed by NASA and funded and operated by the NOAA; it is also expected to send back data much faster with more detailed information about CMEs, including how big they are, how fast they are traveling, and their density. This information is important for forecasters to issue watches at least one day before possible geomagnetic storms.
“These observations are critical to the Space Weather Prediction Center’s (SWPC) ability to warn and forecast. Without these spaceborne observations, we would be blind to where the activity is on the sun spots … we have to make those measurements in space,” Talaat said. 7. We also need to make measurements of coronal mass styles in space as well as get an unobstructed view of these great explosions from the sun.”
According to with NOAA release, scientists will be able to deliver images within 30 minutes of acquisition compared to the eight hours it takes LASCO. Images coming through the device will also be much cleaner as it is built to reduce effects that may be associated with larger solar storms such as the formation of white specks or “snow” on the detector. This was a problem scientists recently when energetic particles from a solar storm hit the navigation camera of the Curiosity rover on Marswhich makes the image blurry.
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“For the first time we will have the ability to get an artificial eclipse, a total solar eclipse, every 30 minutes. That will give us a really good capability right now,” Talaat said. “It will be a better detector so that we get a high resolution of the coronal mass outflows as well as the instrument is designed to be more resilient.”
LASCO’s research has been important in helping scientists better understand the sun’s atmosphere and the effects on space weather, but now that it is nearing the end of its chapter, CCOR-1 is ready to begin a new one. And what better way to end this series of GOES satellites than to usher in a new era of studying and forecasting weather in the great unknown.
