logo
The force is strong with this JEDI

The force is strong with this JEDI

Yahoo15-02-2025

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.
Step aside, Darth Vader. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)'s Joint Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) coronal Diagnostic Investigation, also known as JEDI, has an even bigger task to balance the force in space, giving researchers a brand-new view of the sun's atmosphere.
The instrument will be a state-of-the-art multi-thermal EUV imager that will include two telescopes, specific to studying the solar wind and extreme space weather events. It is planned to take flight on the European Space Agency (ESA)'s Vigil space weather mission in 2031, and will allow scientists to get an even deeper understand of space weather by studying the sun's atmosphere in a less-explored region and at a different angle; at Lagrange Point 5 (L5).
There are areas in space where there's a happy medium of both gravitational and centripetal forces, which are known as Lagrange points. At these locations, spacecraft such as satellites can stay put and remain stagnant while taking observations without being pulled away in different directions. This location is a rare spot to park a probe, as it's trailing Earth's orbit by roughly 60 degrees. It's been around for billions of years, located nearly 19 million miles (30 million kilometers) away from our planet, and also is a solid point to call home; even asteroids remain almost frozen in time in the same location!
'Any time you go to a new place, you have new discoveries, and I think there's going to be great discoveries we're going to get both with the new location at L5 and with the new capability of JEDI. The observations we will get from the Vigil mission will provide the side view of solar storms as they're coming to earth,' Don Hassler, the project lead at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, told Space.com. 'When you're observing these solar storms from Earth, you don't really see the ones that are coming directly at you because they're halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which is a term meaning they're not as easily identifiable. So, you'll be able to see these from this mission and it'll be the ones that actually hit Earth. You'll be able to see the storm that's coming right before it produces an aurora.'
The two telescopes that make up JEDI, the Space Weather Operational Coronal Imager (SWOC) and the Enhanced Wide-angle Observations of the Corona (EWOC), will work in tandem to capture high resolution images to paint a picture of the different parts of the sun's atmosphere. Think of it this way; when you take photos of the same object from multiple angles and from different distances, it helps you understand the entire story of what you're seeing in front of you. JEDI is helping fill in the gaps of data not observed by other space weather instruments, such as the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) instrument aboard NASA and the ESA's SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) and the Compact Coronagraph-1 (CCOR-1) aboard NOAA's GOES-19.
'We're so used to looking at coronagraph images with the occulting disk that we kind of ignore the fact that there's stuff under there that we don't see. JEDI has the ability to study the mesoscale structure, which is the backbone of the quiet solar wind. We're going to be able to link these EUV images on the disk and fill that space from the coronagraph,' Hassler said. 'The solar wind is structured basically because of how it is formed, and sun's middle corona is the link between all the structure that we see on the surface, on the disk, with the structure that we see out in the corona. We're going to be imaging this region on a regular basis with JEDI producing images of this middle Corona on a 10-minute basis.'
Related Stories:
— New NASA coronagraph will measure temperature, speed of solar wind from ISS
— Space weather: What is it and how is it predicted?
— Solar wind: What is it and how does it affect Earth?
By having an extra pair of eyes on the sun, forecasters will be able to tap into information 24/7, and begin to learn more about solar flares as they occur. This will contribute to improved space weather forecasts so advisories and warnings can be issued with more lead time, benefitting both end users that could be impacted by solar storms on Earth and even more time to plan ahead to view auroras that may happen at lower latitudes from stronger geomagnetic storms.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth
What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth

A routine planetarium show at New York's Hayden Planetarium just triggered a potentially historic discovery in astrophysics. While curating scenes for 'Encounters in the Milky Way,' a team of scientists and animators stumbled across something surprising: a spiral structure hidden within the data modeling the Oort Cloud, which is one of the most mysterious regions in our solar system. The Oort Cloud, theorized to be a spherical shell of icy objects orbiting far beyond Neptune, has long remained unseen. Yet when astrophysicist Jackie Faherty noticed the unexpected shape during a simulation, she called in Oort Cloud expert David Nesvorny to investigate, according to a CNN report. It wasn't an animation glitch. It was real data. Nesvorny, who had generated the simulation, admitted he'd never viewed his data in three-dimensional Cartesian coordinates. When he did, the spiral structure emerged clearly. 'Weird way to discover things,' he said. 'I should know my data better.' This accidental find prompted Nesvorny to run weeks of simulations on NASA's Pleiades Supercomputer. Every model confirmed it: a spiral, caused not by the sun's gravity alone, but by the galactic tide—the pull of the Milky Way's own gravitational field acting on the outermost parts of our solar system. Ultimately, he published the findings in The Astrophysics Journal. The discovery reshapes long-held assumptions. While the outer Oort Cloud might still be spherical, the inner part appears to twist in a spiral pattern, suggesting our solar system is more dynamically connected to the galaxy than once thought. Still, verifying the spiral won't be easy. The icy bodies in the Oort Cloud are too small and distant to observe directly. Even with the powerful new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, scientists expect to find only a handful—far short of the numbers needed to fully confirm the structure. But as Faherty put it, the dome of a planetarium can now double as a tool of discovery. 'This is science that hasn't had time to reach your textbook yet,' she said. What a Spiral in the Oort Cloud Could Mean for Life on Earth first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 11, 2025

Russian scientists discover a new island in the Caspian Sea — the world's largest inland body of water
Russian scientists discover a new island in the Caspian Sea — the world's largest inland body of water

Yahoo

time2 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Russian scientists discover a new island in the Caspian Sea — the world's largest inland body of water

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A new island has appeared in the northern part of the Caspian Sea, a Russian research expedition has confirmed. The island, which does not have a name yet, is located 19 miles (30 kilometers) southwest of another island called Maly Zhemchuzhny, according to a translated statement published by the Russian state-owned news agency TASS. The island is only slightly elevated above the water level, and its surface was damp and mostly flat but covered in sand ridges at the time of the expedition, the statement said. The new island emerged due to a drop in the Caspian Sea's water levels, Stepan Podolyako, a senior researcher at the Russian Academy of Sciences' P. P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology (IO RAS) who was on the expedition, wrote in a statement shared with Live Science. The Caspian Sea, which lies at the junction between Europe and Asia, is the largest inland body of water in the world when measured by its surface area of 143,200 square miles (371,000 square kilometers). "The occurrence of new islands in the Caspian Sea is associated with cyclical processes of long-term fluctuations in the level of [these] landlocked waters," Podolyako wrote in the statement. "Awash islands are uplifts on the seabed that come to the surface during periods of falling sea level." The Caspian Sea's levels fell during the 1930s and 1970s before bouncing back — and they started dropping again around 2010, Podolyako said. Related: Surprised Russian school kids discover Arctic island has vanished after comparing satellite images Climate change may be to blame for the recent decline, because the Caspian Sea's water levels partly depend on evaporation rates, Podolyako said. There are also tectonic shifts happening beneath the sea, which could explain changes in water levels, he added. Scientists first spotted signs of the new island in satellite images in November 2024. A pile of sand and sediment had breached the surface of the water and was beginning to dry, according to the statement in TASS — but the claim that a new island was forming remained somewhat controversial. During the recent expedition, researchers managed to approach the island to confirm its existence, but they were unable to land due to bad weather and shallow water conditions. Photographs taken from a drone revealed the island's size and some of its features, but further research is needed to describe it thoroughly. RELATED STORIES —New island that emerged from the ocean off Japan is now visible from space —Melting ice in Antarctica reveals new uncharted island —Newly discovered island is the closest land to the North Pole "A next visit to the island is planned [...] in the second half of 2025," Podolyako said. A decision about the official name of the island will then be made, depending on whether researchers find any notable characteristics to name it after. Otherwise, the island could be named after a person who has made significant scientific or cultural contributions in the area, Podolyako said. The island currently sits just inches above water level, but that could change with declining river flows into the Caspian Sea in the summer and fall, according to the statement in TASS. This may lower water levels around the island and increase its elevation.

NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle
NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle

Engadget

time3 hours ago

  • Engadget

NASA is shutting down some official social media accounts, including the Curiosity rover's handle

NASA is shutting down several social media accounts run by the Science Mission Directorate, including the official Mars Curiosity Rover account on X. The organization says it made the decision in order to "make its work more accessible to the public, avoiding the potential for oversaturation or confusion." The "social media consolidation project" is concentrated in part on X, where there are dozens NASA accounts affiliated with specific missions and areas of research. So far 29 accounts are being archived or consolidated with other accounts, including @MarsCuriosity and @NASAPersevere, the two accounts for the organization's Mars rovers. Posts about both missions will now come from the more general @NASAMars. Some social media accounts will also "rebranded to better align with the new strategic framework," NASA says, "reflecting a broader scope or a more direct connection to core NASA initiatives." With "over 400 individual accounts across 15 platforms" it's not exactly unreasonable that NASA is trying to streamline things, but there is some much appreciated specificity lost when news and information is coming from a more general account. NASA's Curiosity is beloved and the agency's research into Mars was likely more well-known because the social media account made identifying with the rover easier. Beyond social media accounts, NASA could be heading into next year with far fewer resources in general. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget includes around a $6 billion cut to NASA's funding. The limited resources could lead to multiple planned missions being cancelled The Washington Post reports, including sending a probe to Venus, taking mineral samples from asteroids and studying gravitational waves with the European Space Agency.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store