Two state-of-the art solar instruments built at the Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory of the Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] Advanced Technology Center (ATC) in Palo Alto, have been launched aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), a suite of four telescopes, will provide an unprecedented view of the solar corona, taking images that span at least 1.3 solar diameters in multiple wavelengths nearly simultaneously, at a resolution of about one arc-second and at a cadence of ten seconds or better. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI), designed in collaboration with Professor Philip Scherrer, HMI Principal Investigator, and other scientists at Stanford University, will study the origin of solar variability and attempt to characterize and understand the Sun’s interior and magnetic activity.
“The successful launch this morning is a very significant step for the solar physics community. With AIA now in space we’re getting very close to the time when this instrument will be providing the kind of data we need to unravel mysteries of the Sun that have been just beyond our grasp, ” said physicist – and Principal Investigator of AIA – Dr. Alan Title of the ATC. “Looking at the full Sun in a broad range of temperature bands every 10 seconds will give us unprecedented insight into the processes that determine the evolution of the corona.”
