Project Sunrise's Jumbo Balloon Seeks Sun's Secrets

Scientists have successfully tested a balloon-borne solar telescope designed to help unlock secrets about the sun's magnetic fields, according to news from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

The Project Sunrise test launch used a balloon larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to lift a solar telescope 120,000 feet (nearly 23 miles) into the atmosphere, far above turbulent air and the water vapor and ozone that absorb light ultraviolet rays. The Oct. 3 flight lasted about 10 hours, starting off from the Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility in Fort Sumner, New Mexico, and ending about 10 hours later after the balloon's gondola with all its equipment separated from the balloon, deployed a parachute and landed safely in a Texas field.

"This unique research project will enable us to view features of the sun that we've never seen before," said Michael Knölker, director of NCAR's High Altitude Observatory and a principal investigator on the project. "We hope to unlock important mysteries about the sun's magnetic field structures, which at times can cause electromagnetic storms in our upper atmosphere and may have an impact on Earth's climate."

By flying so high up into the atmosphere, the Sunrise solar telescope will be able to provide much more detailed images of the sun's surface. Scientists hope the project will help them learn more about the sun's magnetic fields, which affect everything from solar plasma storms that can interfere with telecommunications and power systems to levels of solar radiation that can affect the Earth's climate.

The balloon-borne telescope will be able to view features on the sun's surface only 19 miles across, more than twice as detailed as any other instrument has been able to image so far.

Sunrise's next mission is scheduled for the summer of 2009, when the solar telescope will be launched into the atmosphere from Kiruna, Sweden. Researchers hope the balloon will stay aloft for up to two weeks, allowing them to capture continuous images of the sun during the Arctic summer, when it remains above the horizon day and night.

"This is a very economical way of rising above the atmosphere and capturing images that cannot be captured from Earth," Knölker says. "What we are doing is laying the groundwork for the next generation of space flights."

The Sunrise project is an international effort involving NCAR, NASA, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, the Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics in Germany, the Astrophysics Institute of the Canary Islands and the Swedish Space Corporation.

The National Center for Atmospheric Research, "Solar Telescope Reaches 120,000 Feet on Jumbo-Jet-Sized Balloon." URL: (http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2007/sunrise.shtml)