Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) Solar Patrol as a New Citizen Scientist Program in the Era of the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and a Gateway to NASA Heliophysics Missions

Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope (GAVRT) Program operates a decommissioned NASA Deep Space Network 34-m antenna for science education under a unique partnership between the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology (JPL), and Lewis Center for Educational Research (LCER). GAVRT strives to inspire and enrich student learning through active contribution to professional science. For over 20 years, GAVRT has provided opportunities for K-12 students and teachers to operate the telescope remotely and take science data. In 2021, using ROSES 2020 Citizen Science seed funding, GAVRT has developed Solar Patrol as a new opportunity to engage citizen scientists outside of K-12 schools. GAVRT Solar Patrol conducts raster scans to generate radio images of the Sun to provide information about the structure of the solar atmosphere including the corona, transition region, and upper chromosphere. These images help us understand how magnetic fields on the Sun can interact and generate intense explosions, which in turn produce strong radio emission, particularly in regions associated with sunspots. GAVRT Solar Patrol conducts daily observations of the Sun at four frequencies (wavelengths or colors) chosen to enable the tracking of radio-emitting material as it rises or falls above the Sun following magnetic field interactions. Citizen scientists, including but not limited to K-12 students, can engage in GAVRT Solar Patrol by taking data, constructing images, & analysis to be used as a gateway to integration with NASAs Heliophysics missions. In addition to being scientifically valuable in their own right, the Solar Patrol data can be combined with measurements from other telescopes, especially with EOVSA interferometer data at GAVRT frequencies, and they complement measurements by the Parker Solar Probe. In particular, data from the GAVRT Solar Patrol and Parker Solar Probe help illustrate how a combination of ground-based and spacecraft measurements can be combined to enhance understanding of the Sun.