SUMI's instruments are designed to study magnetic fields of the sun's chromosphere -- a thin layer of solar atmosphere sandwiched between the visible surface, photosphere and its atmosphere, the corona. Hinode, a collaborative mission of the space agencies of Japan, the United States, United Kingdom and Europe, captured these very dynamic pictures of our sun's chromosphere on Jan. 12, 2007 (NASA)
WHITE SANDS, New Mexico -- NASA plans to launch a small sounding rocket here Thursday to study magnetic fields on the sun in an area called the chromosphere. Jonathan Cirtain, a solar scientist at Huntsville's Marshall Space Flight Center, is the principal investigator on the Solar Ultraviolet Magnetograph Investigation or SUMI mission.
Magnetic fields are central to the sun's huge explosions such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. There are instruments on the ground and in space to measure these fields, but a sounding rocket will see a layer they can't see.
"What's novel with this instrument is that it observes ultraviolet light, when all the others look at infrared or visible light," Cirtain said. "Those wavelengths of light correspond to the lowest levels in the sun's atmosphere, but SUMI will look at locations higher in the chromosphere."
The chromosphere is a narrow layer above the photosphere that raises in temperature with height. Normally, it can't be seen by the naked eye because the light from the photosphere of the Sun overpowers it. The coloring of the chromosphere (deep red) is caused by the immense hydrogen supply it contains. (NASA graphic)
SUMI is designed to help scientists understand how the sun's corona is heated and solar wind is formed. Scientists hope they can eventually predict solar eruptions. SUMI will observe ultraviolet light from two atoms -- Magnesium 2 and Carbon 4 -- on the sun.
"With the knowledge we get from a successful SUMI mission, we can go on to build space-based instrumentation that will help us understand the processes that form flares and CME's and help us predict space weather," Cirtain said.
The launch will be on a Black Brant rocket, and the flight will last about 8 minutes.
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