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China launched its first full solar probe on Sunday, the Advanced Solar Observatory in Space (ASO-S), according to the National Astronomical Observatory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The satellite was launched on a Long March-2D carrier rocket from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China at 7:43 a.m. Beijing time and entered the the designated orbit.
China launches its first complete solar probe, the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), aboard a Long March-2D launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the north west China at 7:43 a.m. Beijing time, Oct. 9, 2022. Wang Jiangbo/China Media Group
China launches its first complete solar probe, the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S), aboard a Long March-2D launch vehicle from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the north west China at 7:43 a.m. Beijing time, Oct. 9, 2022. Wang Jiangbo/China Media Group
ASO-S solar physics study
The probe, called Kuafu-1, a sun seeker in ancient Chinese mythology, will operate in orbit 720 kilometers from Earth, permanently facing the sun.
Equipped with a trio of instruments, the 888-kilogram satellite will provide information about the sun’s magnetic field, the cause of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
Solar flares and CMEs are two high-energy eruptions in the solar atmosphere. While CMEs are relatively gentle ejections of plasma and magnetic fields, solar flares produce bursts of electromagnetic radiation that travel at the speed of light and reach Earth in just over 8 minutes.
Both solar flares and CMEs can affect Earth when they arrive and interact with our planet’s atmosphere. So studying them can help researchers predict such flares with ASO-S data, minimizing potential interference with navigation systems or power grid outages, according to astrophysicist Gan Weiqun of the the Purple Mountain of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the chief scientist of the mission. .
The data will be collected from a suite of instruments carried on the satellites, including an all-solar vector magnetic imager, a Lyman Alpha solar telescope and a solar hard X-ray imager.
“After the probe’s initial commissioning phase, the ASO-S data will be open for everyone to access for free,” said Li Hui, a researcher at the same academy and chief systems engineer scientific applications of the probe.
ASO-S is scheduled to operate for four years, covering the peak of the solar cycle from 2024 to 2025, which normally lasts 11 years.
“Today’s launch will provide us with the best window period to study the sun,” Gan said. “A minimum probe lifetime of four years can cover peak years; we can observe many flares.”