In particular, sounding rocket flights can develop young techniques and scientists for more complex missions down the line. And specifically, the scientists behind MaGIXS hope that these X-rays - and the mission's ability to map them and their temperatures to specific solar regions - will provide evidence of either sporadic or consistent heating in the corona.Īnd putting such instrumentation on a suborbital mission means that projects can launch with mere months of planning, instead of years, allowing NASA's Sounding Rockets Program to launch about 20 missions each year. That last instrument observed what scientists call "soft" X-rays, like those doctors use in medical scans.Įven though these soft X-rays carry comparatively less energy, observing them could still reveal what's happening inside the sun. ![]() ![]() (Image credit: NASA)ĭeveloped by Marshall and the Smithsonian Observatory in Massachusetts, MaGIXS consisted of a telescope, a high-powered camera and an X-ray spectrometer. But, she added, “if they are being produced by dark matter particles … it would be a fairly convincing signature.”īlinded by science? Follow for more dispatches on outer space.The MaGIXS sounding rocket mission before its July 30, 2021, launch. But if the axion theory holds, then the researchers should be able to detect a telltale X-ray pattern in the sun’s heart resulting from the axions’ interactions with the solar magnetic field. Dark matter’s nature and composition are still a mystery. The scientists might also be able to search for dark matter, that mysterious stuff that makes up 84.5% of all matter in the universe and yet has been only indirectly detected by its gravitational influence. “It’s just kind of luck of the draw, really.” “It could be within the next few weeks, it could be months away,” Harrison said. Harrison says they’re going to wait for a lull in the sun’s activity and try again during a quiet period, given that the nanoflares – if they exist – are probably being drowned out by the sun’s larger-scale activity. The sun can put out higher energy X-rays during periods of intense activity, such as when it gives off dramatic solar flares.įor now, the sun is somewhat noisy. Keep in mind, this is on the low end for the NuSTAR telescope, which can detect X-rays at energies up to 79 kiloelectron volts. “That’s what resulted in this really beautiful image, which I think I’m going to make on my Christmas cards next year,” Harrison said. The reddish hues come from an image taken in ultraviolet light by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. These X-rays come from gas heated to about 3 million degrees. The corona is best viewed at X-ray wavelengths where. The scientists looked at different wavelengths of X-ray light – the greenish hues in the image depict X-rays at energies of 2 to 3 kiloelectron volts, while the blue shades represent X-rays at 3 to 5 kiloelectron volts. Solar X-rays are generated mostly in the corona where temperatures are extremely high, around 2 x 106 K. “It’s just a fluke that because of the way that NuSTAR is designed … it is able to look at the sun without damaging it,” Harrison said. It’s somewhat analogous to eclipse glasses, which block out enough of the sun’s rays so that you can see the faint, ethereal corona around the sun without irreversibly damaging your eyes from its overwhelming glare. ![]() The mirrors and detectors on NuSTAR, however, have protective coverings that block out much of the onslaught. The sun is too bright for telescopes such as NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, which probably would have been fried by all the X-rays hitting the detector. ![]() “The theory says that if this is correct, we should see one every few minutes if we look for hours and we don’t see any, then we can wipe out the theory.” “We want to test this theory,” Harrison said.
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