Space junk cleanup: 7 wild ways to destroy orbital debris What goes up must come down: Study looks at risk of orbital debris casualties Space junk threat: Researchers working to reduce impact of falling debris "RHESSI even made discoveries not related to flares, such as improving measurements of the sun's shape, and showing that terrestrial gamma-ray flashes - bursts of gamma rays emitted from high in Earth's atmosphere over lightning storms - are more common than previously thought." During that long tenure, "RHESSI documented the huge range in solar flare size, from tiny nanoflares to massive superflares tens of thousands of times bigger and more explosive," NASA officials wrote. The satellite continued operating until 2018. "Before RHESSI, no gamma-ray images nor high-energy X-ray images had been taken of solar flares." "It achieved this with its sole instrument, an imaging spectrometer, which recorded X-rays and gamma rays from the sun," they added. RHESSI was tasked with imaging "the high-energy electrons that carry a large part of the energy released in solar flares," NASA officials wrote in today's update. RHESSI (short for "Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager") launched to low Earth orbit aboard a Pegasus XL rocket in 2002, on a mission to study the sun like never before. Most of the spacecraft likely burned up in Earth's atmosphere, though some pieces were expected to make it to the ground, NASA officials said.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |