Aurora scientists entered private astronauts in an unusual space mission
Topboard Spaceboad’s astronauts Fran The role is approaching the earth’s poles than no one than no one, a wonderful opportunity for Auroral science
Steve (improving thermal broadcast speed) is seen in the night sky in a southern southern Alberta house in Canada.
Alan Dyer / Stocktook Images / Alamy Stock Photo
A rocket on Monday launched four passengers to look at a pole from the pole, perpendicular to the Earth Equator Duplicate mission Fran Norwegian polar ship in a nod.
Before FranThe crew missions only obtained orbits to go to the Equator of 65 degrees. This means that astronauts never flew in space in the Icelandian land Antarctica or many many. But interesting things occur in the atmosphere in larger latitudes – the most famous, Auroras. Mainly throughout Times to increase solar activityThese screens are usually visible in the northern and 78 degrees in northern and southern Latitudes and during the day, painting the bright oval around each pole. Other astronauts, especially at international space station, have seen Aurora from spacebut Fran Jannicke Mikkelsen’s crew expects to bring more science to observations.
While planning FranActivities, Mikkelsen moved to Katie Herlingshaw with a physicist in the Norwegian University Center, who works in Svalbard Aurora-observed, crowded science project To understand excellent atmospheric phenomena. “People are almost anywhere, and all of us got your phone, so they are doing the dense observation network ever,” says Herlingshaw.
To help Science Journalism
If you enjoy this article, consider entering award-winning journalism Subscribe. By purchasing subscription, you are helping to ensure the future of stories about the discoveries and ideas that are conformed to today.
Herlingshaw was built in this community to develop Skywatchers network tracking Fran Looking for flight and auroras its way in northern and southern hemispheres. Mikkelsen hopes that they can use these visions to catch a single screens footage from the spacecraft windows. American scientific He talked to the project and his goals.
(Continues edited transcript of the conversation.)
How will these observations be from satellite data? What is the value of having real people there?
We have made satellite images usually focused on photos of the entire oval auroral in a type of wavelength, such as ultraviolet. But what they really are interested in are small traits, things that will come pretty quickly. We don’t really have a good way to get these features from satellite polar compulsions.
Now we have a man who can change the camera settings, change the direction of pointing and knowing what is in its orbit. (Mikkelsen) is taking these high-resolution videos and we also have full color images. It is a unique setup that are the first people who have been there.
What do you expect to see phenomena? And how are they relating to Aurora?
A lot of people use the term “Aurora” through particles caused by particles from the magnetic lines of the Earth area, which affect the atmospheric particles and cause a kind of light emission. So the idea is that these particles must come from space. But there are some light emissions in the local atmosphere and very fast moving plasma. “Aurora” or “Auroralike” is discussed “just”.
So we are calling “Strange Aurora” as a term of umbrella. These are quite new findings about functions that we don’t understand.
For example, we noticed these parts of the Auroralike emissions: I just call them parts. They do not look close to the nearest Aurora, which is vertically aligned in the line of magnetic field; Parts, almost perpendicular. This also indicates that these things are not coming from space that something is happening.
Sometimes near these parts, called a continuous broadcast. We are named “Ghost Aurora” because we are named white. Aurora are usually white, so that your eyes are amazing when you receive weak colors. Many people see a gray rumor in the sky or something, but if you look at the scientific tools that are able to select these colors, you usually see it, like green or blue or blue. White is not all colors (spectacular lights) because they are all and combine them together to make white. That is curious to Aurora, and all these different colors suggests the effect of heating that is happening in the atmosphere, but we still do not fully understand the mechanism behind it.
Are in high latitudes. For people who are farther away, they often see Another Aurora Type called Steve. Steve can also be a white color, and sometimes we see, sometimes these other things that are called drawings, looks and play a lot like parts. We are interested: why are things like that? Why do they play like that? And why do we see similar things in completely different places?
What do you expect to achieve during the mission?
We will be very happy to only have nice observations. All we really need (Mikkelsen) are single years, some of these weird Auroras are associated with observations from the ground. The best case, then we are having more than one, as much as possible. But with these things a needle is like trying to him. Where you are dark, you need a spacecraft and then it is not cloudy and that Aurora is there and people are really awake and leaves from the ground.
We would like to do some triangulations exactly what happens to the height they are going on. We hope to see a three-dimensional structure, and maybe it may help us represent the associated mechanisms and emissions. We also made radars to tell information about what is hot, to find out how fast things move, which is the density of the particles. We would like to be able to say what these weird Auroras is, but it depends on what kind of data.
What do people want to participate in whether they want to participate?
People should have the right time with the camera. We can’t use observation if time was wrong, and recently changed watches in some parts of the world. If possible, accuracy is accurate. And then, when you are away, gather a location for your observation. We need these two things.
We ask the astronaut in real time to publish people in various Facebook groups. A Project website instructions Enter the map of all different. People should join the nearest group or one of the most global groups per hemisphere.
But we cannot use these social networks for science, as soon as it is loaded with Facebook, because all the information and exposure to time and exposure is disappeared. So we also ask people Submit to a platform called Skywarden“And in the observation story, put #solarmaxmisio.” The observations presented here can also win some prizes that have had space (Mikkelsen) are flying Fran to give the mission patches.
