A Mission Concept for a Solar Observatory in a Highly-Inclined Heliocentric Orbit - Demystifying the Magnetic Nature and Activity of our Star
Abstract
The 2013 Heliophysics Decadal Survey recommended an off-the-ecliptic solar/heliospheric mission to improve our understanding of the Sun by observing the magnetic field, meridional flows, solar irradiance, and their dynamic activity, in the lower atmosphere corona and inner heliosphere from the polar regions. This is necessary in order to address the Decadal Survey's Solar and Heliospheric Physics challenges: (1) to determine the origins of the Sun's activity and predict the variations in the space environment; and, (2) to discover and characterize fundamental processes that occur both within the heliosphere and throughout the universe. Here, we provide an initial mission concept design for a high-inclination Sun-orbiting observatory formulated by the 2020 NASA Heliophysics Mission Design School. By expanding our surveillance of the solar surface, this mission will permit, for the first time, the mapping of the magnetic fields around the Sun and its poles from a highly-inclined heliocentric orbit. With a comprehensive instrument suite and a unique vantage point, this mission will answer a large number of open questions studying the solar dynamo and characterize the internal differential rotation profile across all latitudes; measure the photospheric polar magnetic field and its reversal; uncover the physics of the birth, evolution, and 3D structure of solar active regions and the formation of pre-eruptive structures; determine the global structure and evolution of the solar corona; and will monitor solar transients and their interaction with the solar wind. By measuring the polar field strength with in-situ and remote sensing, this mission will constrain evolutionary models of the global coronal and inner-heliospheric magnetic field, in addition to providing critical input for dynamic models of the structure of the source region and the propagation of coronal mass ejections, further enabling the coupling of different MHD models to study the Sun-Earth connection. With its unique vantage point, this spacecraft will fill in the gaps in our current knowledge of the Solar-dynamo, magnetic fields, and space weather fulfilling multiple Heliophysics science challenges.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMSH0110006C
- Keywords:
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- 7509 Corona;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7522 Helioseismology;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7524 Magnetic fields;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7536 Solar activity cycle;
- SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY