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https://science.nasa.gov/earth/oceans/going-with-the-flow-visualizing-ocean-currents-with-ecco/
https://ecco-group.org/publications-featured.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5-s6O8qyvE
Going With the Flow: Visualizing Ocean Currents with ECCO
Mar 03, 2025
Historically, the ocean has been difficult to model. Scientists struggled in years past to simulate ocean currents or accurately predict fluctuations in temperature, salinity, and other properties.
As a result, models of ocean dynamics rapidly diverged from reality, which meant they could only provide useful information for brief periods.
In 1999, a project called Estimating the Circulation and Climate of the Ocean (ECCO) changed all that.
By applying the laws of physics to data from multiple satellites and thousands of floating sensors, NASA scientists and their collaborators built ECCO to be a realistic, detailed, and continuous ocean model that spans decades.
ECCO enabled thousands of scientific discoveries, and was featured during the announcement of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2021.
NASA ECCO is a powerful integrator of decades of ocean data, narrating the story of Earth’s changing ocean as it drives our weather, and sustains marine life.
The ECCO project includes hundreds of millions of real-world measurements of temperature, salinity, sea ice concentration, pressure, water height, and flow in the world’s oceans.
Researchers rely on the model output to study ocean dynamics and to keep tabs on conditions that are crucial for ecosystems and weather patterns.
The modeling effort is supported by NASA’s Earth science programs and by the international ECCO consortium, which includes researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and eight research institutions and universities.
The project provides models that are the best possible reconstruction of the past 30 years of the global ocean. It allows us to understand the ocean’s physical processes at scales that are not normally observable.
The Agulhas Current flows south along the western side of the Indian Ocean. When it reaches the southern tip of Africa, it sheds swirling vortices of water called Agulhas Rings.
Sometimes persisting for years, the rings glide across the Atlantic toward South America, transporting small fish, larvae, and other microorganisms from the Indian Ocean.
Researchers using the ECCO model can study Agulhas Current flow as it sends warm, salty water from the tropics in the Indian Ocean toward the tip of South Africa.
The model helps tease out the complicated dynamics that create the Agulhas rings and large loop of current called a supergyre that surrounds the Antarctic.
The Southern Hemisphere supergyre links the southern portions of other, smaller current loops (gyres) that circulate in the southern Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans.
Together with gyres in the northern Atlantic and Pacific, the southern gyres and Southern Hemisphere supergyre influence climate while transporting carbon around the globe.
In addition to affecting global weather patterns and temperatures, western boundary currents can drive vertical flows in the oceans known as upwellings.
The flows bring nutrients up from the depths to the surface, where they act as fertilizer for phytoplankton, algae, and aquatic plants.
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The Kuroshio Current that runs on the west side of the Pacific Ocean and along the east side of Japan has recently been associated with upwellings that enrich coastal fishing waters.
The specific mechanisms that cause the vertical flows are not entirely clear.
Ocean scientists are now turning to ECCO to tease out the connection between nutrient transport and currents like the Kuroshio that might be revealed in studies of the water temperature, density, pressure, and other factors included in the ECCO model.
Tracking Ocean Temperatures and Salinity
When viewed through the lens of ECCO’s temperature data, western boundary currents carry warm water away from the tropics and toward the poles.
In the case of the Gulf Stream, as the current moves to far northern latitudes, some of the saltwater freezes into salt-free sea ice.
The saltier water left behind sinks and then flows south all the way toward the Antarctic before rising and warming in other ocean basins.
Currents also move nutrients and salt throughout Earth’s ocean basins. Swirling vortexes of the Agulhas rings stand out in ECCO temperature and salinity maps as they move warm, salty water from the Indian Ocean into the Atlantic.
Experimenting with ECCO
ECCO offers researchers a way to run virtual experiments that would be impractical or too costly to perform in real oceans.
Some of the most important applications of the ECCO model are in ocean ecology, biology, and chemistry.
Because the model shows where the water comes from and where it goes, researchers can see how currents transport heat, minerals, nutrients, and organisms around the planet.
In prior decades, for example, ocean scientists relied on extensive temperature and salinity measurements by floating sensors to deduce that the Gulf Stream is primarily made of water flowing past the Gulf rather than through it.
The studies were time-consuming and expensive. With the ECCO model, data visualizers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, virtually replicated the research in a simulation that was far quicker and cheaper.
The example illustrated here relies on ECCO to track the flow of water by virtually filling the Gulf with 115,000 particles and letting them move for a year in the model.
The demonstration showed that less than 1% of the particles escape the Gulf to join the Gulf Stream.
Running such particle-tracking experiments within the ocean circulation models helps scientists understand how and where environmental contaminants, such as oil spills, can spread.
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NACA Test Pilot Poses with Plane
Mar 03, 2025
In this 1957 photo, George Cooper, a test pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA, stands next to a North American F-100, a supersonic fighter tested by the NACA.
Cooper served as a pilot in World War II before being hired at the NACA’s Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in 1945.
Between 1945 and his retirement in 1973, Cooper tested over 135 aircraft, routinely pushing them to their limits.
On March 3, 1915, the NACA was established by Congress to “supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight, with a view to their practical solution.”
Over the course of its 43 years, the NACA became home to many of the nation’s best and brightest aeronautical engineers and world-class facilities.
America’s flight capabilities for military and commercial uses were advanced through its cutting-edge research. It was upon this foundation that America’s civilian space agency was built.
With the passing of the Space Act in 1958, the NACA was transformed into NASA and tasked with researching problems of flight in both the air and in space.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/naca-test-pilot-poses-with-plane/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhI4NdPAUtQ&list=PLfnpkfDmrBqZyVAO-Oxd7a-CQYRINCpsX
Colorful Dust Over Mauritania
March 3, 2025
Wind plucks hundreds of millions of tons of dust from parched landscapes in northern Africa each year, propelling vast plumes of the tiny mineral particles over the Atlantic Ocean.
By one estimate, the region contributes about half of the dust in the atmosphere—more than any other area in the world.
The MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) on NASA’s Aqua satellite glimpsed this process when the sensor captured this image of dust streaming off the coast of Mauritania on February 25, 2025.
Although much larger and denser plumes occur in this area, the dust in this image stands out due to its distinctive coloration.
Sebkhet Te-n-Dghâmcha (also called Sebkha de Ndrhamcha), a seasonal lake and salt pan northeast of Nouakchott, appears to be the source of the lighter-colored dust.
The salt pan contains large amounts of gypsum, a white mineral that forms when the lake’s water evaporates.
It is also rich in other white minerals, including calcite and kaolinite, according to Sofía Gómez Maqueo Anaya, an atmospheric scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, who studies airborne particles at the Ocean Science Centre Mindelo in Cabo Verde.
The darker, more yellow plumes are likely rich in hematite or goethite, iron oxide minerals known for giving dust reddish or yellowish hues.
Dried lakes and rivers are major sources of atmospheric dust because evaporating water typically leaves behind fine-grained particles that are light enough to be lifted.
They also tend to lack vegetation, making the particles especially vulnerable to wind-driven erosion and transport.
Once airborne, Saharan dust particles can affect the health of people, both near and far, who breathe them and any pathogens they carry.
Also, many plumes cross part or all of the Atlantic Ocean, fueling phytoplankton blooms, fertilizing soils in the Amazon, and influencing the development of hurricanes.
“This plume looks localized and relatively low,” said atmospheric scientist Holger Baars, after analyzing lidar data from the research site in Mindelo operated by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research in Germany.
He said most dust plumes that pass over Cabo Verde extend about 4-5 kilometers above sea level, but this one reached just 1.5 kilometers (1 mile), meaning it was low enough to have a significant effect on local air quality.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153998/colorful-dust-over-mauritania
Athena Nova-C IM-2 captures the Moon
Mar 4, 2025
Intuitive Machines’ Athena Nova-C lunar lander successfully entered on an orbit around the Moon on 3 March 2025, at 12:27 UTC.
Athena Nova-C is currently scheduled to land on Mons Mouton, the south pole region of the Moon on 6 March 2025, at 17:32 UTC.
https://www.intuitivemachines.com/im-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydg1IlszB8Q
George Lowe, Voice of Space Ghost, Dead at 67
March 4, 2025 7:43 am
George Lowe, a veteran voice actor whose credits include the title role in Space Ghost Coast to Coast, died on March 2 at age 67, a spokesperson confirms for TVLine.
Lowe reportedly passed following a long illness, his longtime friend “Marvelous” Marvin Boone shared on Facebook.
Back in July 2023, Space Ghost Coast to Coast contributing writer MC Chris shared with fans concerned about Lowe’s conspicuous absence from social media that the actor had been suffering health problems including an aortic dissection that required intubation twice, and had a nurse looking after him at his home in Florida. “We came close to losing him,” Chris said.
An alumnus of the Radio Engineering Institute of Sarasota, Lowe began his career in the 1980s with occasional voiceover work, before landing the title role in Cartoon Network’s Space Ghost Coast to Coast.
A send-up of talk shows that featured live-action celebrity guests, the animated series would run for 10 years and more than 100 episodes, including a move to Adult Swim and a brief revival via Turner Broadcasting’s GameTap online video game service.
Lowe also voiced Space Ghost in the 1995 spinoff Cartoon Planet, the 2007 movie Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters and in the 2011 video game Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion.
His voice acting credits also include The Brak Show, Robot Chicken, Squidbillies and American Dad.
https://tvline.com/news/george-lowe-dead-space-ghost-voice-obituary-1235415885/
https://www.iflscience.com/colossal-creates-woolly-mouse-in-step-towards-de-extincting-the-mammoth-by-2028-78287
Colossal Creates “Woolly Mouse” In Step Towards De-Extincting The Mammoth By 2028
March 4, 2025
As part of their ambitious goal to bring back the woolly mammoth by 2028, Colossal Biosciences has created what they've named the "Colossal woolly mouse".
By pinpointing gene families linked to mammoth woolliness, their team used advanced multiplexed genome engineering to target seven genes, creating mice with some of the mammoth’s core phenotypes.
Those traits include mammoth-like coat color, texture, and thickness, as well as altered lipid metabolism. Suffice to say, the results are very, very fluffy.
Mammoths VS Asian elephants
One of the biggest challenges on the path to woolly mammoth de-extinction is identifying which genes in the Asian elephant, the closest living relatives of mammoths, would need to be altered to make it cold-tolerant.
This involves searching for genome sequences that could be associated with how an animal looks and behaves, and then testing them in cell cultures.
To tackle this, Colossal analyzed 59 woolly, Columbian, and steppe mammoth genomes ranging from 3,500 to over 1.2 million years old, and used computational analysis to compare a data set of 121 mammoth and elephant genomes, including the high-quality reference genomes for Asian and African elephants the company previously created.
In doing so, they could search for the right genes to control cold-tolerant phenotypes, like fur and lipid metabolism.
However, even armed with this remarkable dataset, a whole animal model remains the best way to test for the ultimate consequences of DNA edits. So, where do you start?
“An Asian elephant has a 22-month gestation, and they’re an endangered species that we don’t want to be doing experiments like this on,” said evolutionary biologist and chief science officer at Colossal Beth Shapiro to IFLScience.
“A mouse has a 20-day gestation. It’s also a mammal. They’re quite distantly related to each other, about 200 million years of evolution [apart], but the same genes and gene families that are associated with traits like wooliness in an elephant and a mammoth occur in mice.”
Creating the Colossal woolly mouse
By identifying DNA sequences that were the same in the mammoths, but different from Asian elephants, the team could single out the specific gene variants and families that were associated with the physical phenotype of a woolly mammoth.
As an important animal model system, there was already plenty of data available on the developmental biology and genetics of mice, and by editing their versions of these elephant and mammoth genes, Colossal were able to bring about the same phenotypes despite them being so distantly related.
Doing so required three editing technologies: RNP-mediated knockout, multiplex precision genome editing, and precision homology directed repair (HDR).
This enabled them to make eight edits simultaneously, some with editing efficiencies as high as 100 percent, to modify seven genes.
“We didn’t just shove mammoth genes into a mouse, that wouldn’t make any sense,” said Shapiro.
“We found that there was an interesting change in mammoths and also an interesting change in the mouse version of these genes that led to a predictable phenotype.
This was the sweet spot, and to test our ability to edit multiple things at the same time, we picked 10 of those genes and we edited all of them at the same time.”
“In some of our mice, we used different combinations of them, so the most edited mouse has changes to seven different loci.
There's actually eight edits, but one of them is edited in two different places, and we have our ultra woolly mice.”
What the Colossal woolly mouse represents
Colossal woolly mice grow hair up to three times longer than wild type mice.
This comes down to alterations in hair growth cycle that were modified using an edit that causes loss of function in the gene Fibroblast growth factor 5, or FGF5.
The woolly hair texture comes from the loss of function of FAM83G, FZD6, or TGM3, and changes to hair follicle development and structure resulted in curly whiskers.
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The edits were carefully screened and tested to ensure that the animals’ welfare was maintained, with CEO and co-founder of Colossal Ben Lamm appearing very happy as he told IFLScience, “There were no unintended consequences except adorability.
We didn't think that they would be as cute as they are.”
We know from mammoths retrieved from the permafrost that they too shared the orange fur seen on the Colossal woolly mouse, but Lamm and Shapiro were careful to point out that what they've created here isn't an entirely new animal, but a variant that boasts phenotypes borrowed from an ancient and long-extinct creature.
“This is a really good example of the way we're approaching de-extinction,” said Shapiro.
“So, what we're thinking about is a functional de-extinction. It's never going to be possible to bring something back that's 100 percent identical in its genetics, physiology, and behavior to a species that's extinct, but that's not our goal.”
“Our goal is to create species that are able to thrive in the habitats that exist today, and that means bringing back some of these traits that help to restore missing interactions between organisms in an ecosystem.
Interactions that aren't there anymore because the species is extinct. So, we're trying to model these things, and it's going to take a combination of ancient DNA, searching for changes that are directly seen in the extinct animals, and engineering.”
Why de-extinct a mammoth?
The Colossal woolly mouse marks a remarkable leap forward in the goal to de-extinct the mammoth, a goal that Lamm says is still on track for its 2028 timeline.
Along the way, they’re developing a de-extinction toolkit that has already contributed to advancements in species preservation and human healthcare.
They currently have their sights set on the de-extinction of the mammoth, dodo, and thylacine, the latter for which they recently achieved mid-gestation marsupial embryo development in an artificial uterus – a step that could be pivotal in upscaling rewilding efforts without the need for surrogates.
As for why de-extinct the mammoth at all, the ultimate vision really comes down to recognizing how animals shape the environment.
“We hope we can affect an ecosystem in a positive way, that maybe 10,000 years ago was degraded by humans contributing to the demise of almost all major herbivores in the Arctic, causing a transition from grass to trees,” geneticist and co-founder of Colossal Biosciences George Church told IFLScience.
“Trees are less photosynthetically productive, they trap more heat because they’re kind of like these black lightning rods, and they also trap snow in the winter, so that they insulate the ground from freezing quickly.”
“These three things, the lower productivity, the lower ability to sequester (carbon), and higher temperatures means that a lot of carbon can be released as methane, which is 80 times worse than carbon dioxide.
If we can reintroduce the megafauna, mega herbivores that would keep it in grass, it could transition back towards the more robust and fruitful ecosystem.”
Church hastened to add that these kinds of environmental benefits are a long-term goal that nobody alive today will live to see, but if we’re to one day harness the sequestration power of a woolly mammoth, we need to work out how to bring about its unique talents in an Asian elephant.
Now that Colossal have introduced to the world the Colossal woolly mouse, it seems we’re getting that much closer.
"The Colossal Woolly Mouse marks a watershed moment in our de-extinction mission," said Lamm in a statement emailed to IFLScience.
"By engineering multiple cold-tolerant traits from mammoth evolutionary pathways into a living model species, we've proven our ability to recreate complex genetic combinations that took nature millions of years to create.
This success brings us a step closer to our goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth."
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Nikon to Implement Space Strategy Fund at Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
March 4, 2025
Nikon Corporation (Nikon), known for its digital manufacturing and advanced selective laser melting (SLM) solutions, announced last week that it was selected as one of the organizations to implement the Space Strategy Fund (SSF) by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Nikon will work on the technology development theme “Innovative technology for lightweight, high-performance, and lower cost space transportation systems” in the SSF open call for FY2024.
Nikon’s mission is to develop and demonstrate additive manufacturing for low-cost, short-lead-time precision parts for space applications, using its Nikon SLM Solutions NXG XII 600, organic R&D and new facilities in Japan.
Each organization participating in the SSF will lead in its own area of technological expertise, leveraging research from Japanese universities and companies.
Specifically, they will use Japan’s first large-scale metal 3D additive manufacturing system platform, a system that Nikon claims “will capture the global market.”
The technology development theme’s purpose is to establish a base technology that achieves innovations in molding processes and enhanced parts.
Along with that, they aim to implement wider applications of metal additive manufacturing for large-scale structures, as well as parts for space transportation systems.
The project description also mentions achieving innovation using carbon fiber-reinforced plastics for wider applications.
One of the project’s goals is to develop a metal additive manufacturing base technology for large and precise space parts like rocket engines.
Why additive manufacturing? Nikon acquired metal 3D printing giant SLM Solutions in 2023, along with its expertise in selective laser melting (SLM) technology.
SLM, which is a powder-bed fusion process, can fabricate parts with complex geometries and advanced properties.
To do SLM, metallic powder is spread over a build plate and then melted with a focused laser beam in an inert atmosphere.
After a layer is scanned, the build plate is lowered, and the next powder layer is transferred onto the build plate.
This fresh layer of powder is scanned, and the build plate moves down again. This process continues until the final part is realized.
SLM can achieve metal parts with extremely high resolution, precision and accuracy, so the manufacturing method can meet the demanding needs of aerospace applications.
Just as the project’s title states, AM is also capable of achieving low-cost and lightweight parts, ideal for aerospace, where weight makes all the difference.
That is why so many organizations, including NASA and the United States Department of Defense are 3D printing parts for rockets.
Now, JAXA is making similar efforts, and we will have to wait and see how Nikon’s work impacts spacecraft production.
https://www.3dnatives.com/en/nikon-to-implement-space-strategy-fund-at-japan-aerospace-exploration-agency-030420255/#!
https://www.nikon.com/company/news/2025/0227_02.html
NOAA terminates space, climate and marine life advisory committees
March 3, 2025 02:05 PM ET
The Trump administration is disbanding expert advisory committees focused on space, climate, coastal area management and marine fisheries after the agency they were designed to assist said they are no longer necessary.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is ending the committees because they “have served their purpose and should be terminated,” Nancy Hann, the agency’s deputy undersecretary for operations, said in a memorandum obtained by Government Executive.
The terminations follow an executive order from President Trump requiring agencies to do away with any federal advisory committees not required by law.
The impacted committees are the:
Advisory Committee on Excellence in Space
Climate Services Advisory Committee
Marine and Coastal Area-based Management Advisory Committee
Marine Fisheries Advisory Committee
The Commerce Department’s Office of Privacy and Open Government, which manages all of the federal advisory committees within Commerce, will work with the committees to ensure “an orderly termination,” Hann added.
The space committee, established in 2002, assisted NOAA in assessing the capacity and actions of the commercial sector in space and advises it on avoiding negative impacts on space debris.
The climate committee, stood up just before President Biden left office, was established to provide NOAA with advice on making its data and tools better available for those managing droughts, floods, wildfires, heatwaves and other impacts of climate change.
The coastal management committee, also created under Biden, provided expertise on conservation and restoration in coastal and marine areas, including the Great Lakes.
The fisheries committee was established in 1971 to provide advice on policies related to living marine resources, including fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds and other waterfowl.
Ahead of the terminations, employees involved with the committees were instructed by the Commerce Department to pause any meetings until further notice.
A NOAA spokesperson said the termination decisions were made by Commerce and any questions must be directed to the department. Commerce did not respond to a request for comment.
Such councils exist throughout and are governed by the 1972 Federal Advisory Committee Act. They are set up across agencies to gather advice and information from non-federal experts, including those in academia and the private sector.
The General Services Administration provides oversight of the groups to ensure they remain objective and accessible to the public. There are at least 1,000 federal advisory committees throughout government, according to GSA.
Committees not mandated by Congress go through an administrative review of their activities and responsibilities every two years.
Jules Barbati Dajches, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said last month that FACs help ensure that "decisions that necessitate the use of science are free from political interference, corruption, and unintentional errors.”
“Consisting of experts in their respective fields from academia, local governments, non-profits, and industry, they provide guidance to policymakers on a range of high-stake issues that impact people every day–including their access to clean air and water,” Barbati Dajches said.
“Advisory committees, groups, and boards bring the public into the work of the government to provide advice in a deeply engaged way.”
Barbati Dajches added the committees help agencies identify and utilize the best available science and “provide a reality check to create effective policies.”
The Environmental Protection Agency previously fired members of its two science advisory committees and Trump has also signed an order requiring at least one-third of FACs to be dissolved.
https://www.govexec.com/management/2025/03/noaa-terminates-space-climate-and-marine-life-advisory-committees/403421/
Earth from space: Giant, pyramid-like 'star dunes' slowly wander across Moroccan desert
March 4, 2025
This intriguing astronaut photo shows around a dozen giant "star dunes" as they slowly dance across a sandy field near the edge of the Sahara desert.
The rare dunes, which are often confused with human-made pyramids, are likely several centuries old, recent research has revealed.
The unusual structures are located in Erg Chebbi. This field of open, windswept sand — or erg — covers around 65 square miles (170 square kilometers) in southwest Morocco along the northwestern edge of the Sahara.
The erg is surrounded by flat lowlands but contains some of the tallest dunes in the Sahara, making it stand out like a mountain range when viewed from afar.
The town of Merzouga is also visible in the bottom right of the image.
This settlement is built on top of a large aquifer, or underground reservoir, which allows palm groves to flourish alongside the desolate landscape and draws in tourists who are looking to explore the erg's sandy peaks.
A star dune is a type of sand dune that has at least three ridges coming from a central peak, which gives it a star-like shape when viewed from above, according to NASA's Earth Observatory.
But when they're viewed from the side, their multiple smooth slopes, known as "slip faces," can make the star dunes look very similar to pyramids from ground level.
These dunes, which can grow to be over 300 feet (90 meters) tall, form only in locations where wind directions change constantly, which allows their different slopes to form, according to the National Park Service.
As a result, they move by just a couple of inches every year in the direction of the strongest prevailing wind.
That's a lot slower than some other wandering dunes, which can travel up to 1,000 feet (300 m) annually when blown in a single direction.
The largest star dune in Erg Chebbi, Lala Lallia, is 330 feet (100 m) tall and is located slightly to the north (left) of the dunes in the satellite image.
In March 2024, researchers revealed that this dune is around 900 years old, which is much younger than previous estimates had suggested.
The same study also revealed that some of the sand buried at the base of this dune is up to 13,000 years old.
These grains predate an 8,000-year period of climatic change that occurred after the end of the last ice age.
During this time, the Sahara was temporarily transformed into a swampy environment covered in vegetation — a shift that ended only around 4,000 years ago, researchers wrote at the time.
On Earth, star dunes are also found in China, Namibia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia and several U.S. states, including California and Colorado.
But very similar structures can be found on Mars, according to NASA.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/earth-from-space-giant-pyramid-like-star-dunes-slowly-wander-across-moroccan-desert
India's Aditya-L1 solar probe watches powerful flare erupt from the sun
March 4, 2025
India's first sun-studying spacecraft, Aditya-L1, has captured one of our star's fiery outbursts in new detail.
From its vantage point about 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, Aditya-L1 gets an uninterrupted view of our sun, allowing the probe to observe solar flares as they're unleashed, as well as other activities that can affect space weather.
Solar flares occur in regions where the sun's magnetic fields become tangled, appearing as sudden, bright bursts that can last from several minutes to hours.
The suite of seven science instruments onboard Aditya-L1 work together to detect and analyze these flares across a range of wavelengths, providing scientists with a more complete picture of how the sun's energy propagates through different layers of the star.
Among these instruments is the Solar Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, or SUIT, which observed the flare on Feb. 22 of last year.
The flare, classified as X6.3 — one of the strongest categories of solar eruptions — emerged from the active region NOAA 13590, which had appeared just days earlier on the sun's Earth-facing side.
SUIT observed a brightening in the near-ultraviolet wavelength range of 200 to 400 nanometers, which had never been seen before as there were no dedicated space telescopes focused on this wavelength range, according to a Feb. 28 statement by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which operates Aditya-L1.
By combining data from the SUIT instrument with observations from the probe's onboard spectrometer SoLEXS (Solar Low Energy X-ray Spectrometer), scientists concluded that the brightening in the sun's lower atmosphere due to the flare was directly linked to a rise in temperature in the outer corona.
This confirmed that the energy released by the solar flare propagated through the different layers of the sun's atmosphere, according to a paper describing the observations, which was published Feb. 28 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"It is a great stroke of luck that Aditya-L1 was able to witness such a strong flare right at the beginning of its research career," study co-author Sami Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, said in another statement.
Two more spacecraft — NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter — as well as unspecified Earth-based telescopes also observed the event, according to the statement.
"Together with observations from other probes and telescopes, this for the first time provides a complete picture of the processes that occur in different layers of the solar atmosphere during a flare," Solanki said.
https://www.space.com/the-universe/sun/indias-aditya-l1-solar-probe-watches-powerful-flare-erupt-from-the-sun
https://www.mpg.de/24282801/solar-probe-aditya-observes-flare
Sauce?