Jenna Samra had a very extraordinary scientific research experience while visiting Colorado this summer. The recent August 21 total solar eclipse provided Jenna a unique opportunity to test an instrument that she helped design and build, the airborne infrared spectrometer or AIR-Spec.
It is widely known that the Sun has 'spots'--dark areas on its surface that are well known to contain strong magnetic fields, much stronger than the Earth's field. The number of spots seen on the Sun waxes and wanes with a period of roughly eleven years, the 'solar cycle'.
HAO scientists observed the August 21st total eclipse with a suite of three instruments with financial assistance provided by NASA. The experiments were intended to learn about the magnetic and thermal structure of the solar corona with the goal of understanding how the Sun generates weather in space.
For over a decade, Joan Burkepile has participated in the STEM conference for middle school girls called “Expanding Your Horizons,” at CU Boulder. These one-day hands-on workshops are led by women professionals and are designed to be fun and exploratory.
Magnetism defines the complex and dynamic solar corona. It determines the magnetic loop structure that dominates images of the corona, and stores the energy necessary to drive coronal eruptive phenomena and flare explosions.
