#SUN CORONA HELIUM SOFTWARE#

The temperature rises across the chromosphere from 4,500 degrees Kelvin to about 10,000 degrees Kelvin. The chromosphere extends above the photosphere to about 1,200 miles (2,000 kilometers). Therefore, the outer edge of the photosphere looks dark, an effect called limb darkening that accounts for the clear crisp edge of the sun's surface.

This makes them less opaque to the human eye. As we pass up through the photosphere, the temperature drops and the gases, because they are cooler, do not emit as much light energy. The bumps are the upper surfaces of the convection current cells beneath each granulation can be 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) wide. It appears granulated or bubbly, much like the surface of a simmering pot of water. It is 180-240 miles (300-400 kilometers wide) and has an average temperature of 5,800 degrees Kelvin. 'The surface of the sun' typically refers to the photosphere, at least in lay terms. The photosphere is the lowest region of the sun's atmosphere and is the region that we can see. However, the sun's is composed of the photosphere, the chromosphere and the corona. Just like Earth, the sun boasts an atmosphere. NRL headquarters is located in Washington, D.C., with major field sites in Stennis Space Center, Mississippi Key West, Florida and Monterey, California, and employs approximately 2,500 civilian scientists, engineers and support personnel.We've finally made our way to the surface. NRL is a scientific and engineering command dedicated to research that drives innovative advances for the Navy and Marine Corps from the seafloor to space and in the information domain. Laming demonstrates a strong belief in his model’s prediction capability and his understanding of the sun’s corona adding, “I think we all have more confidence in my model and the conclusions one might draw from it.” “In the future, service members should anticipate more reliable satellite-based Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance.” “There is a long chain of work efforts that go from fundamental understanding of the solar atmosphere, to specifying the observables that need to be monitored before we eventually get to reliable Space Weather forecasts,” said Laming. These are major reasons why the Navy is interested in disruptions of the Earth’s magnetic field structure in these measurements. The Navy uses magnetic sensors in various battlespace applications, which could be disrupted during large geomagnetic storms and Coronal Mass Ejections.

Geomagnetic storms impact radio frequency transmission at frequencies refracted, or reflected, by the ionosphere. The leading model for solar wind variability used by the Department of Defense and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration space weather forecasters is an NRL SSD product, known as the Wang, Sheely, Arge Model which is based on simple assumptions about the relation of the solar magnetic field structure and the solar wind, and is reasonably successful in predicting the overall variability of the solar wind as it reaches Earth. Using a concept developed at NRL for a coronagraph functioning in the extreme ultraviolet regime of the electromagnetic spectrum, the helium coronagraph obtained the first images of the solar atmosphere in the region of the solar wind source surface from light resonantly scattered from helium ions. 14, 2009, provided a number of technological advances in space-based remote sensing.

The HERSCHEL sounding rocket, launched Sep. “This was one case where instead of explaining the observations after the fact, I was able to see a prediction I had made come true.” “Understanding space weather is important for space situational awareness, that is, forecasting and mitigating the effects of solar activity on Navy and Defense Department satellites,” said Laming. His NRL colleague, Research Physicist Martin Laming, Ph.D., managed the new model of element abundance fractionation, to include helium.

#SUN CORONA HELIUM SOFTWARE#

NRL Astrophysicist Dennis Wang, Ph.D., software lead for the HElium Resonance Scattering in the Corona and HEliosphere (HERSCHEL) rocket flight, was responsible for flight and ground software. The paper, “Global Helium Abundance Measurements in the Solar Corona,” was published online in Nature Astronomy and discusses the abundance of helium relative to hydrogen in the solar corona, the outer atmosphere of the sun, seen from earth only during eclipses. Naval Research Laboratory Space Science Division (SSD) researchers joined an international cadre of scientists July 27 in presenting the results of the first simultaneous global solar corona images of the helium and hydrogen emission that is helping scientists to better understand the space environment.

Sun corona helium