Sun ID: 13291

NASA’s New Solar Scope Is Ready For Balloon Flight

Released on August 23, 2019

NASA and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute, or KASI, are getting ready to test a new way to see the Sun, high over the New Mexico desert.

A pearlescent balloon — large enough to hug a football field — is scheduled to take flight no earlier than Aug. 26, 2019, carrying beneath it a solar scope called BITSE. BITSE is a coronagraph, a kind of telescope that blocks the Sun’s bright face in order to reveal its dimmer atmosphere, called the corona. Short for Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona, BITSE seeks to explain how the Sun spits out the solar wind.

Team member Nelson Reginald examines the BITSE instrument in the lab where it was built, at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. BITSE is a coronagraph, a kind of telescope that blocks the Sun’s bright face in order to reveal its dimmer atmosphere.

Credit: NASA/Joy Ng

Source Material

For More Information

NASA Team to Fly First-Ever Coronagraph Capable of Determining the Formation of the Solar Wind

Studying the Sun’s Atmosphere with the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017

Credits

Scientists:
Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy (NASA/GSFC)
Nelson Reginald (Catholic University of America)
Jeff Newmark (NASA/GSFC)
Qian Gong (NASA/GSFC)

Producer:
Joy Ng (USRA)

Writer:
Kathalina Tran (SGT)

Technical Support:
Aaron E. Lepsch (ADNET Systems, Inc.)

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13291

This item is part of these series:
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Keywords:
SVS >> SOHO
SVS >> Solar Wind
GCMD >> Location >> New Mexico
SVS >> Space Weather
SVS >> Coronagraph
SVS >> SDO
SVS >> Solar Dynamics Observatory
SVS >> Eclipse
SVS >> Heliophysics
SVS >> STEREO
SVS >> Corona
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> Balloon
SVS >> BITSE
SVS >> CODEX
SVS >> CSBF
SVS >> Fort Sumner

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0