NIST assists in solar stake-out to improve space weather forecasts
Thursday, July 10, 2008 - 12:14
in Astronomy & Space
The sun is about to undergo unremitting scrutiny. About six times each minute of every hour for at least five years, a soon-to-be launched NASA satellite will measure the sun's quirky—and sometimes stormy—output of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light. To ensure that this solar stake-out yields data useful for understanding the weather in space and its earthly consequences, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology are helping a NASA team prepare for annual rocket-borne check-ups of key instruments aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).