STEREO Mission

[mickw]

Just visited the NASA STEREO page - great images
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/main/index.html

I knew I should have nicked a pair of 3D glasses 

[JohnP]

Yes but has it answered the question as to why the two spacecraft had to be in different orbits...? It must be something to do with the 'stereo effect'.

Cheers,  John

[Fay]

Really good site, Mick, great video. I think everyone will be fired up after Lucy's interesting presentation, last night.

[mickw]

John, the different orbits are needed for the stereo bit, I think the gripe last night was that the orbits are drifting apart so will make the whole thing useless in the not too distant future 

[Rick]

One launch rocket took both craft into space, presumably because one launch is cheaper than two. I'd guess the ahead and behind orbits were the easiest way to get the separation required for a good stereo effect from a single launch while also keeping Earth (and, incidentally, SOHO) at about the mid-way point. The idea is to get the best view of coronal mass ejections directed towards Earth.

The mission is only planned to last two years.

[Ian]

The only thing Paul and I could come up with was that is was to reduce the requirement for a fuel load to place the satellites. By launching one towards the sun (a bit) and one away, into those orbits, orbital mechanics with give the separation after a while without burning any fuel. Given there is no possibility of servicing these satellites and they have a finite life the plan was to get them up there, cheaper, wait for them to separate and when they do get as much data as you can from them. As Lucie said last night, they're still going through the data received...

[Rick]

They played an interesting game of cosmic billiards involving the Moon to get the two craft into their respective orbits.

See http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/orbit.shtml

[Jim]

Perhaps the orbital drift was planned so that it will be possible to view the entire surface of the sun whilst events occur. We've probably never been able to simultaneously view the entire surface at the same time. Just a thought.

[Rick]

Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar "tsunami" hurtling through the Sun's atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour.

The event was captured by Nasa's twin Stereo spacecraft designed to make 3D images of our parent star.

Naturally, this type of tsunami does not involve water; instead, it is a wave of pressure that travels across the Sun very fast.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7326097.stm

[Rick]

Nasa's Stereo orbiters have captured stunning new images of spaceborne debris thrown out from the Sun.

The twin spacecraft have seen Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) hurling material into a comet, ripping off its tail.

Scientists hope the probes will allow better forecasting of CMEs, which sometimes disrupt communication systems on Earth.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7348064.stm

[mickw]

NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft have provided scientists with their first view of the speed, trajectory and three-dimensional shape of powerful explosions from the surface of the sun.

This knowledge could help scientists better understand the inner workings of these solar tsunamis, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and how and when they could affect Earth.

"We are able to obtain the three-dimensional structure of the CME for the first time," said Angelos Vourlidas, project scientist for the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation, of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

More:   http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090414-new-stereo.html

[Rick]

Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers about a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as the "solar tsunami."

Years ago, when solar physicists first witnessed a towering wave of hot plasma racing along the sun's surface, they doubted their senses. The scale of the thing was staggering. It rose up higher than Earth itself and rippled out from a central point in a circular pattern millions of kilometers in circumference. Skeptical observers suggested it might be a shadow of some kind—a trick of the eye—but surely not a real wave.

More: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/24nov_solartsunami.htm?list185042

[Rick]

For the first time, a spacecraft far from Earth has turned and watched a solar storm engulf our planet. The movie, released today during a NASA press conference, has galvanized solar physicists, who say it could lead to important advances in space weather forecasting.

"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Researcher Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."

CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. When they sweep past our planet, they can cause auroras, radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages. Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.

More: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/solarstorm-tracking.html

Video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVD3OnigFFE

[Carole]

Amazing footage, thanks for posting Rick.

Carole