If we want to understand our place in the Universe fully, we should learn as much as possible about our solar system and about our sun, in particular. While our star is providing us energy, light, and heat on a daily basis, it can be tremendously dangerous if we get too close to it.
NASA plans the Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) mission to study how the sun generates and releases solar particle storms into space. This practically means that six CubeSats will operate as one very large radio telescope.
We’ll have to wait until 2023, at least
The mission won’t start earlier than 2023, it will last for 11 months, and NASA has awarded a staggering amount of money for it: $62.6 million.
Nicky Fox, director of NASA’s Heliophysics Division, declared:
We are so pleased to add a new mission to our fleet of spacecraft that help us better understand the Sun, as well as how our star influences the space environment between planets,
The more we know about how the Sun erupts with space weather events, the more we can mitigate their effects on spacecraft and astronauts.
Six solar-powered CubeSats will observe low-frequency emission from solar activity and their radio images. The devices will share them via NASA’s Deep Space Network. The six CubeSats will further create 3D maps to showcase where giant particle bursts originate on the Sun. It will also be observed how the bursts evolve as they expand outward into space.
We all have to be honest and admit that there are still many wonders in space left undiscovered, There are many pieces of the overall puzzle missing, but science is struggling to find them all. There are still mysteries about our sun that need to be unveiled.
SunRISE is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) from Pasadena, California.
