Understanding the magnitude and occurrence of solar storms is key to predicting events that can be harmful to thousands of Earth-orbiting satellites and the welfare of astronauts.
Coronal Holes present the source of the fast solar wind. However, the fast solar wind is not unimodal—there are discrete, but subtle, compositional, velocity, and density structures that differentiate different coronal holes as well as wind streams that originate within one coronal hole.
Paul Bryans tells Sun Superheroes that a solar eclipse is an opportunity to understand and study the Sun's magnetism. During a solar eclipse, when the moon blocks the Sun, it allows scientists to study the strength and shape of the Sun's surrounding magnetic field.
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is a NASA Small Explorer mission that provides high-resolution spectra and images of the Sun in the 133–141 nm and 278–283 nm wavelength bands.
We study UV spectra obtained with the SO82-B slit spectrograph on board SKYLAB to estimate the fine structure splitting of the Cl-like 3p43d4D5/2 and 3p43d4D7/2 levels of Fe X.
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) provides an unparalleled opportunity to explore the (thermal) interface between the chromosphere, transition region, and the coronal plasma observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
On August 21, 2017, Paul Bryans and his team of scientists will be ready to aim a spectrometer at the sun during total eclipse in an effort to detect the effect of magnetism on certain wavelengths of infrared light emitted by the corona.
Paul is a Project Scientist in the High Altitude Observatory at NCAR. He received his PhD on the spectral emission of non-Maxwellian plasmas from the University of Strathclyde in the UK in 2005.
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