NASA’s SunRISE Mission

Context:

NASA has announced a new SunRISE mission to study giant solar particle storms.

About:

• The Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) will look into how Sun generates and releases the giant weather storms, known as the solar particle storms, into space.
• The SunRISE mission is to understand how such storms affect interplanetary space can help protect spacecraft and astronauts.

What are Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs)?

• Solar energetic particles (SEPs) emitted from the Sun are a major space weather hazard motivating the development of predictive capabilities.
• These events occur when particles (mostly protons) emitted by the Sun become accelerated either close to the Sun during a flare or in interplanetary space by coronal mass ejection shocks.

The mission layout:

• The mission layout depends on 6 solar-powered CubeSats– each regarding the size of a toaster oven– to concurrently observe radio photos of low-frequency emission from the solar task and share them using NASA’s Deep Space Network.
• SunRISE contains six CubeSats which will work together as a large radio telescope. Each of the CubeSats would run on solar power.
  • The CubeSats will create 3D maps that pinpoint where giant particle bursts originate on the sun and how they evolve as they expand into space.
  • This, in turn, will help determine what initiates and accelerates these giant radiation jets of radiation.
  • The spacecraft will also work together to map the magnetic field lines reaching from the sun out into interplanetary space.
  • Together, these will observe radio images of low-frequency emission from solar activity and create 3D maps to locate the origin place of a solar particle storm on the Sun.