Rachelfeldman: for Scientific American‘s Soon science, I am Rachelfeldman. As we know, we know that it did not exist without the sun, but we surprisingly don’t know much about our host stars. There, the helio field field appears. The 2025 is set to be a banner year for the people who study the sun.
Please tell me more here. Scientific American。
Megan, thank you for coming to chat today.
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MeGhan Bartels: Thank you for greeting me.
Feltman: First question, obvious question: What is Heliophysics?
Bathel: Yes, Helio Figic is a solar research and an effect on the solar system. And it’s a really big topic. Because the solar wind is basically like a plasma of particles that flows down from the sun and the magnetic field of the sun, these two phenomena grow over the track of PL and grow more than 100 times. 。 The earth is the distance from the sun.
Feltman: oh.
Bathel: Yeah.
Feltman: And why is 2025 so exciting for Helio Fagic?
Bathel: Yeah, so there are some things that are consistent this year.
First, the sun is at the maximum stage of the 11 -year solar cycle. Solar Max will begin more than two years ago, and scientists expect it to last for about 3-4 years in total. And between the sun max, and even if the activity begins to decline, the sun continues to exhale plasma radiation and lumps, which can play a lot of new data to scientists, which is really exciting.
Another factor is that there are many very cool scientific missions designed to study the various aspects of Heliosphere, which will be released next year. And you know how excited the scientist is about the new mission (laughs).
Feltman: (Laughs) Absolutely.
Bathel: Yes, and another factor that sounds like a bureaucracy, Heliofisists receive a truly important report from the science state (academy) at the end of the year, and explain the outline of the next 10 years of priority. 。 It is called a 10 -year report, and many of the (universe) science aspects have it. And it specifies that they should prioritize the money they have, such as what the spaceship and telescope researchers should build. And this time, around the two large spacecraft missions they approved, one is a mission designed to study the pole of the sun. The other is a 26 -satellite fleet that goes around all the earth, and will study how the sun will affect the planet.
And there is another thing. There is a third large -scale project, which is a ground -based. This creates the next generation of this ground -based array. In the current version, the sun is constantly observed -it is a surrounding earth, so it always looks at the sun -and it is studying waves that pass inside the sun like earth seismics …
Feltman: MM-Hmm.
Bass: It is called Helioseismology. It is a way to study the inside and the other side of the sun. It’s a super cool thing.
Feltman: Very cool. And in the last 10 years of reports, these have not yet started …
Bathel: that’s right.
Feltman: They say -the government says, “You should do this.”
Bathel: Yes, government panels investigate scientists …
Feltman: Hmm.
Bathel: It is this long process. It takes years to do it. And yeah, it covers the 10 -year period. And this is like starting with a completely designed one. As they are, they are in the design stage. They are all on paper and nothing are built. So, as we have been built and released for decades in the past few decades, this will be the next 10 years.
Feltman: It’s very cool, and I definitely want to join some missions ongoing …
Bathel: MM-Hmm.
Feltman: However, it is a wild that I have never seen the pole of the sun directly. When we finally look closely at them (laughs), what kind of type do we want to learn?
Bathel: Yes, it’s really wild. A while ago, there was a mission called Ulyssss, and I got some data from Paul, but I couldn’t actually see it nearby. And now a European mission called Solar Orbiter is flying. It goes out a little and gets a slightly tilted orbital around the sun, but you can’t fly like a pole. I want to do future missions.
The sun is basically a huge magnet, which is really important because you see the pole of the magnet, how the pole works and how the magnet develops throughout the sun. During the sun and the 11 -year activity cycle, it is all dominated by magnetism.
Feltman: Completely. Yes, please return to some of the progress and tell us about the future missions or some of the ongoing missions in the Heliophysics world. What are the most excited people?
Bathel: Yeah, so it’s a really wonderful year for Heliophysics Missions. What is really cool is that NASA has launched an interdoal mapping and acceleration probe, or a mission called IMAP. And it will stay inside the inner solar system, but in fact it maps the end of the heliosphere, so the place where the solar wind falls …
Feltman: MM-Hmm.
Bathel: And where the magnetism of the sun falls. And that is really important. Because we don’t really know what the Helios Fair is.
Feltman: MM.
Bathel: It may be the form of a long -tail comet. It may be the form of this wild croissant. Nobody really knows, it’s really difficult to see it directly, and we have passed twice with the two voyagers, but you are you. Give two points to. It doesn’t give you a shape. So it should be really cool.
Another future mission is called a polarizer to unify Corona and Helios Fair or punch.
Feltman: I was going to say -what is the Equisian …
Bathel: (Laughs) There is always an acronym. It’s NASA …
Feltman: “Every time I heard such a name,” Which initials were they working on? “(Laughs)
Bathel: Yes, yeah, it’s a punch. The punch should be released in late February, each of which is the four satellites of the size of the suitcase, and will see the sun 24 hours a day. They intend to see this phenomenon, which is the phenomenon of the sun’s corona, the outer atmosphere, which is spreading throughout the solar system, and really trying to understand how the transition actually happens.
And the third thing I think is really cool is the third thing that can be called escape (laughs) in escape, plasma (acceleration) and dynamics explorer (laughs). And Eskay Pade is a spacecraft pair, and they are actually going to Mars.
Feltman: Oh, amazing.
Bathel: They are not on earth. They intend to go to Mars, and they are studying how the sun wind affects Mars and its atmosphere, and how they interact.
And there are others. They are just a few years, yeah, it will be a really cool year.
Feltman: And why is it important for us to understand the sun better than all the splendor?
Bathel: (Laughs) Yeah. This is a place called space weather. For this reason, basically, all of these phenomena are interactions in a really interesting way because the sun is sent to the solar system, the earth has a magnetic field and an atmosphere. It may be caused. If you get a truly large solar flare or (coronary lump emission), which is a plasma explosion, it can be really cool like Aurora, but it can end with problems. Space astronauts can damage the spaceships and satellites, and truly powerful events can cause the power network of the earth itself.
And scientists basically want to approach the weather in a space where weather scholars are approaching the weather (laughs). They want to be able to predict it. They want to understand that people are heading to us with enough warning time to protect and protect people with people. And it all needs to understand the better sun better than we have now. Basically, I have no ability to predict such an event. We have a spacecraft stationed 1 million miles away from the earth, which is like a warning beacon …
Feltman: Hmm.
Bathel: And it looks at the sun and tells you what’s coming, but that’s useful, but in a place close to the prediction that you can get for your mobile phone or a hurricane. there is no. It provides much more robust and predictive tools to respond to people.
Feltman: Yes, it definitely seems like a valuable effort, and we hope that we can get some aurora predictions there.
Bathel: (Laughs) Neither I have me.
Feltman: And I want to tell you where my phone should go …
Bathel: surely.
Feltman: Are there any other big questions they are trying to answer?
Bathel: Yes, another long -term question about the sun is Corona. In fact, it is much hotter than the visible surface of the sun. So don’t look at the sun alone. Eye protection is required. You need a solar solar eclipse glasses. Such a thing. However, it sounds quite hot because it is like the surface of the sun seen via these protective lenses, that is, around 10,000 degrees. However, the problem is that if you look at the photos of the corona, that is, the whole sunset, the corona is a white and nitle part …
Feltman: MM-Hmm.
Bathel: Around the moon disc, there is a possibility of up to 3.5 million degrees, and scientists do not understand that the fever will jump at all. That …
Feltman: right.
Bathel: It’s completely …
Feltman: It will be hot far away.
Bathel: that’s right.
Feltman: What is happening (laughs)?
Bathel: If they speak, that’s happening here if you suddenly get hot and suddenly get hot. And nobody understands how, why it is, and like a really big mystery. Here on earth.
Feltman: absolutely. Now, thank you for chatting with us, and we’re excited to come back when we start regaining some of these answers.
Bathel: (Laughs) I can’t wait.
Feltman: That is all of today’s episodes. If you want to know more about Heliophysics, see Meghan’s recent article. Sciam; There is a link in the show notebook.
Soon science I have been produced with Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwagi, Kerso Harper, Madison Goldberg, and Jeff Delvisio. Today’s episode was reported by Meghan Bartels and co -sponsored. Shayna Hosses and Aaron Shattuck check our shows. Our theme music was composed by Dominik Smith. Subscribe Scientific American About more and more detailed scientific news.
for Scientific American, This is Rachelfeldman. See you next time!
