2000 SPACE SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| 1999 SOLAR RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS | G00-010 | 1/28/00 | 00:20:00 | A compilation of the year's solar research highlights.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): SOHO EXAMINES THE SUN - Extreme ultraviolet images of the Sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
a) May 1999
b) March 1999
c) February 1999
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| ITEM (2): OBSERVATIONS FROM LASCO - Image of the solar corona -- source of the solar wind as recorded by SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument.
a) June 1999 C2 & C3 coronagraph
b) March/April 1999 C2 & C3 coronagraph
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| ITEM (3): VIBRATING CORONAL LOOPS - Huge loops and coils of heated coronal gas vibrate like a piano string hit by its hammer following the blast wave from a solar flare. It is those vibrations which heat the corona to intense temperatures, often many times hotter than the surface of the sun itself. Recent observations by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE)
spacecraft indicate that the corona may be millions of times more viscous than previously expected, thus explaining why the medium of solar plasma has a higher than expected level of molecular friction.
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| ITEM (4): SOURCE OF THE SOLAR WIND - The inner images of the solar disk were taken by the EIT instrument aboard SOHO. The outer diffuse emission was observed by the UVCS instrument aboard SOHO, which creates an "artificial eclipse" in ultraviolet light to observe the dim extended solar corona. The dark regions at the north and south poles are called "coronal holes," and they are thought to be the primary source regions of the high-speed solar wind.
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| ITEM (5): SURFING THE SOLAR WIND - The outermost solar atmosphere, or corona, is normally visible only during a solar eclipse. Instruments aboard Spartan 201 and SOHO create artificial eclipses to view the accelerating solar wind of electrically charged particles. New observations of particles "surfing'' on waves in the corona have shed light on an ongoing mystery of why the solar wind flows as fast as it does.
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| ITEM (6): WIND SPIRALING AND WAVE DAMPING - Charged particles in the solar wind spiral around lines of magnetic force, and these lines oscillate back and forth to create outward-propagating waves. When the particles' spiraling frequencies match the wave frequencies, the particles can absorb the waves' energy; this spins up the particles into larger orbits, gives them an added outward boost, and damps out the waves.
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| ITEM (7): ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR WIND - The nature and origin of the solar wind is one of the main mysteries which the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was designed to solve. It has long been thought that the solar wind flows from coronal holes; scientists were surprised to find these outflows are concentrated in specific patches at the edges of honey-comb shaped patterns of magnetic fields inside coronal holes.
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| ITEM (8): ORIGIN OF THE SOLAR WIND - Like water gushing through cracks in a dam, scientists observed "fountains" of electrified gas, called the solar wind, flowing around magnetic regions on the Sun to begin a two million mile per hour rush into space. Using the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, NASA and European scientists observed solar wind flows coming from the edges of honey-comb shaped patterns of magnetic fields at the surface of the Sun.
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| ITEM (9): THE SPEEDY SOLAR "WIND" - The solar wind comes in two varieties: high speed and low speed. The low speed solar wind moves at roughly a million miles per hour, while the high speed wind is even faster, moving at speeds as high as two million miles per hour. As it flows past Earth, the solar wind changes the shape and structure of the Earth's magnetic field, which can damage satellites and disrupt communications and power systems.
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| ITEM (10): ISTP CONSTELLATION - A collaborative effort by four space agencies and more than a dozen countries, the International Solar Terrestrial Physics program studies the Sun-Earth system with many spacecraft.
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| ITEM (11): NASA'S WIND SPACECRAFT - Launched in November 1994 by NASA, Wind spends most of its time sampling the solar wind on the day side of Earth.
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| ITEM (12): NASA'S POLAR SPACECRAFT - Launched in February 1996 by NASA, Polar makes daily passes over Earth's north and south poles in order to study the magnetosphere and the
aurora.
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| ITEM (13): TRACE SPACECRAFT ANIMATION - The TRACE spacecraft is one of NASA's Small Explorer spacecraft. Launched aboard a Pegasus rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in April 1998, TRACE studies the magnetic field of the solar atmosphere. Working in conjunction with the SOHO spacecraft, TRACE is tasked with the primary mission of unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding the solar corona.
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| ITEM (14): SOHO SPACECRAFT ANIMATION - Animation of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
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| ITEM (15): SPARTAN 201 ANIMATION - Animation of NASA's Spartan 201 spacecraft deployed from the space shuttle during the STS-95 mission.
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| ITEM (16): SOLAR SCIENTISTS AT WORK - B-Roll
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| ITEM (17): INTERVIEW EXCERPTS - DR. CRAIG DEFOREST, STANFORD UNIVERSITY
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| ITEM (18): INTERVIEW EXCERPTS WITH DR. DON HASSLER, SOUTHWEST RESEARCH INSTITUTE, BOULDER, CO
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| ITEM (19): INTERVIEW EXCERPTS WITH DR. LEON OFMAN, TRACE PROJECT SCIENTIST
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