What exactly was recorded?
The instrument is located at the front of the aircraft and is called Samia four-camera platform built at NASA’s Langley Research Center. Cameras are shooting 20 or more frames per secondThis makes it possible to track not only the appearance of the corona but also its movement. From this altitude, the cameras also pick up infrared wavelengths that would otherwise be absorbed by the lower layers of the atmosphere before the light reaches Earth.
The plane almost chased the moon’s shadow 740 kilometers per hour-Extend monitoring time. College continued 2 minutes and 56 seconds As seen from the aircraft, compared to the longest total available to a ground observer that day, 2 minutes and 18 seconds. The trip was collected More than 2 TB From the footage.
At the sun’s eastern edge, the team spotted a large bulge they hadn’t expected, glowing pink in the hydrogen alpha line. Spinners are rings of hot, magnetized plasma above the surface of the Sun, and when particles reach Earth, they can damage satellites, disrupt GPS navigation, and strain the power grid. As will be the case after the 2024 eclipse, the footage is being calibrated and analyzed by… William Ashfieldand also from the Southwest Research Institute.
Why does the corona become hotter than the surface of the Sun?
This question is one of the main reasons for organizing such flights. Corona reaches temperatures close to A million degreesWhile the Sun’s visible surface beneath is much cooler, the mechanism that supports this gap remains unexplained. Simultaneous images across multiple wavelengths provide researchers with material to compare structure and dynamics within the corona, but they do not provide an answer in and of themselves.
