The mini solar telescope, tied to the side of the International Space Station (ISS), took the first image, revealing subtle changes in the homestar’s outside atmosphere that you’ve never seen before.
NASA’s coronary diagnostic experiment (Codex) is a small solar telescope attached to the outside of the ISS. That’s the coronagraph. This means blocking the solar disk and allowing the telescope to focus on the solar atmosphere, or the details that are unprecedented in the coronavirus. The occult disc blocking sunlight is the size of a tennis ball and is held in place by three metal arms at the end of a long metal tube.
Codex arrived at the ISS on November 5th, 2024, aboard the SpaceX Dragon Cargo Capsule, previously reported by Live Science’s sister site Space.com. According to NASA, it was stuck on the station’s hull by the robotic arm Canadarm2 on November 9th.
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The first photo from Codex was released on June 10th at the 246th conference of the American Astronomical Association in Anchorage, Alaska. They include footage of external corona temperature fluctuations taken over several days, as well as photos of a giant “coronal streamer” shooting from the sun.
“Codex Instrument is doing something new,” Jeffrey Newmark, Heliophysicus at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and lead researcher at Codex, said in a statement. “These are new observations that we’ve never seen before, and I think there’s a lot of very interesting science to do.”
Related: Watch spooky “ufos” and solar “cyclone” portray stunning new ESA videos
The main goal of the new telescope is to discover how superhot particles constantly flowing from the sun, known as solar wind, interact with the atmosphere outside the sun. “In previous coronagraph experiments, the density of corona material was measured, but the codex measures the temperature and velocity of the material in the slowly changing solar wind flowing from the sun,” Newmark said.
Mission Scientists also wants to understand how solar winds heat up to around 1.8 million degrees (1 million degrees Celsius), up to 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), according to Space.com.
To do this, the telescope uses four narrowband filters to measure the sun. “Comparing the brightness of the images of each of these filters allows us to communicate the temperature and speed of the coronal solar wind,” Newmark said.
Researchers hope that a better understanding of solar wind will help predict dangerous space weather phenomena, particularly those derived from the huge “coronal holes” that expel creeks of solar particles, particularly fast to Earth.
Over the past few weeks, the Earth has experienced two important geomagnetic storms. Both of these were caused by coronal holes. First, on June 13, a considerable storm caused aurora in up to 18 states. And recently, on June 25th, a slightly weaker turbulence temporarily illuminated the night sky.
This gust of activity is the solar maximum and the result of the solar spot cycle, which is the most active stage of the approximately 11-year solar spot cycle. This chaotic peak is likely to be nearing its end now, and there will be fewer explosive explosions in the future. However, some experts believe solar winds are unpredictable for several years as the local magnetic field of the solar competes for control during a period known as the “solar battle zone.” Therefore, your Codex device may be on at the best time.
“We really didn’t have the ability to do this kind of science,” Newmark said. “I’m excited about what’s going forward.”
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