Of the few unexplored frontiers that remain for humankind, fewer still present the same allure as the infinite void of space hanging around our world, and the mysteries it, perhaps eternally, will keep. As part of NASA’s Solar Probe Plus mission, the Space Sciences Laboratory at U. California-Berkeley aims to unlock some of those stellar secrets.
Scheduled for launch no later than 2018, according to a statement from NASA, the mission was developed to figure out the origins of phenomena produced in the sun’s atmosphere. The lab’s “fields experiment” was selected for mission participation Thursday and will contribute components to the probe designed to gather data on electromagnetic fields, radio emissions and shock waves in the solar atmosphere, according to the statement.
“It’s an exploration of ‘where do we live – what’s the environment we live in?'” said Dick Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “It’s a cultural and intellectual endeavor.”
UC Berkeley astrophysics professor Stuart Bale, director at the lab and principal investigator for the fields experiment, said the basic science behind the lab’s contribution will help understand what heats and energizes the solar atmosphere.
“Our experiment is going to measure the magnetic fields directly,” he said. “We’re measuring the turbulent processes that heat the plasma in the solar atmosphere.”
According to Fisher, everything humans do in space is influenced by the variability in the sun’s magnetic field and the flow of charged particles around the sun.
“When you’re a modern society that pervades into space, (the sun) affects everything,” Fisher said.
The different phenomena that flow from the sun – such as the solar winds, solar energetic particles and coronal mass ejections – cause effects ranging from the aurora borealis to disruptions in telecommunications and electronics, which can cause power blackouts and affect satellites, defense capabilities and financial markets, among other things. Electronic systems used in space, as well as the human tissue of an astronaut’s body, can also be damaged by solar radiation and phenomena.
“The sun’s magnetic variability actually extends to the earth – it drives our interface with the solar system,” Fisher said.
He added that understanding how real stars actually act and behave has been a goal for the space science community since NASA was founded.
Both Bale and Fisher emphasized the lab’s contribution to the mission as “fundamental” and “key,” respectively. Bale said the lab is involved in more than just the fields experiment, too. Parts of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory at Harvard’s experiment – which will investigate electron alphas and protons in the solar wind – are being built by researchers on campus.
Hardware contributions to the lab’s experiment will not just come from Berkeley, or even the United States. Some components are being developed by the University of Minnesota, the University of Colorado at Boulder, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Paris Observatory in Meudon, France and the National Center of Scientific Research laboratory in Orleans, France, said Bale.
John Lee, program executive for the Solar Probe Plus mission, said while no cost has been set for the mission, NASA is working within a range of $1 billion to $1.3 billion. Bale said all American contributions to the mission will be funded by NASA.
According to Fisher, the closest a human-created spacecraft has come to the sun has been within about 25 million miles. The probe will thrust directly into the sun’s atmosphere, within 4 million miles of its surface, the statement reads.
The probe itself will be about the size of a car and will have to withstand temperatures exceeding around 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit with its “revolutionary carbon-composite” heat shielding, according to the statement.
“We’ll see these structures generated right up close in the solar atmosphere where the particles are being energized,” Bale said.