Marshall scientists lead launch effort to learn more about sun - WAFF-TV: News, Weather and Sports for Huntsville, AL

NASA scientists will launch a solar telescope into space Wednesday afternoon to learn more about the sun's outer atmosphere.

The HI-C (High Resolution Coronal Imager) will launch on a Black Brant sounding rocket from White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch is scheduled for 1:50 p.m.

The mission will take little more than ten minutes total. Half of the flight's 620 seconds will be high enough above the Earth's atmosphere to intercept the sun's ultraviolet rays. Scientists are aiming to view a specific range of UV light in order to observe the sun's fundamental structures.

HI-C has the capability to bring back the highest resolution images scientists have ever captured of the sun. Its capture will be five times more detailed than the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The SDO currently produces some of the most useful and arguably beautiful images of the sun.

Huntsville's own scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center lead the international effort for HI-C. Other instrumental agencies include the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, University of Central Lancashire in Lancashire, England and the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Dr. David Hathaway, a solar physicist for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, said the information collected on missions like these allow scientists to better predict solar flares, which can be instrumental in saving millions of dollars and lives here on Earth.

A large solar flare, according to Hathaway, could knock out power to large transformers, leaving residents without power for months at a time. Flares can also interrupt radio communication, which can disrupt trans-polar airline flights. Those flights are required to use radios to communicate with the Federal Aviation Administration. A large enough solar flare would make that impossible.

However, Hathaway said he doesn't expect this particular solar cycle will produce those detrimental effects.

"It's a very weak sunspot cycle, about the weakest in 100 or perhaps even 200 years," he said. "Nonetheless, there are plenty of sunspots on the sun, plenty of activity... At the moment, there's a big region on the sun that's been producing lots of small flares and we're waiting to see whether it produces a big flare."

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