NASA has announced that it has selected four small explorer missions to conduct concept studies for further exploration of the dynamics of the Sun, and how they affect space weather. This includes coronal mass ejections (CME), auroras and the solar wind.
“Any missions selected to move forward after the concept studies are conducted will join the current heliophysics mission fleet, which not only provides deeper insight into the mechanics of our universe, but also offers critical information to help protect astronauts, satellites, and communications signals, and helps enable space exploration,” NASA wrote on its website.
The concept studies are:
CINEMA: “The Cross-scale Investigation of Earth’s Magnetotail and Aurora (CINEMA) mission would work to understand the structure and evolution of Earth’s plasma sheet—a long sheet of denser space plasma in the magnetic fields flowing behind Earth, known as the magnetotail—using a constellation of nine CubeSats flown in sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit. The primary purpose of this mission is to study the role of plasma sheet structure, as well as how Earth’s magnetic fields transfer heat and change over time at multiple scales.
CMEx: “The Chromospheric Magnetism Explorer (CMEx) mission would attempt to understand the magnetic nature of solar eruptions and identify the magnetic sources of the solar wind. CMEx proposes to obtain the first continuous observations of the solar magnetic field in the chromosphere—the layer of the solar atmosphere directly above the photosphere or visible surface of the Sun.”
