Tuesday was all about learning and updating us about specific NASA Missions related to Heliophysics. There are many. If you think the acronyms in the HIDOE are bad, just take a lookey-lou at some of these names:

MSS, THEMIS, ARTEMIS, STEREO, SDO, and IBEX

Hold onto your hats, here we go!

Radiation Belt Storm Probes Mission (RBSP)

Due to launch in August 2012, this mission is aimed at understanding the Van Allen radiation belts.  Two spacecraft are better than one in the study of this dynamic area. Scientists hope to understand more about space weather, and how all our satellites can survive the upcoming tantrums pitched by the sun. There is lots of new information for teachers and students.  Sven Oldenwald has developed specific math applications that can be seen at his space math website, or the RBSP site. 

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

SDO was the first mission launched as part of the Living With A Star (LWS) Program to study the variability of solar output and it's impacts on Earth. They are currently VERY busy. STEM educators can really use this site! I was especially interested by the Think Scientifically Elementary School Science Literacy Program and the Sun as Art Program. Everything can be downloaded or viewed online. Such a connection for science literacy and everything is FREE!

 This mission website also provides a current picture of the Sun. Yup. You can look at the sun without frying your cornea ! Just click here and be ready to be amazed.

Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) studies the boundaries of our solar system in relationship to the larger galaxy. Studying our heliosphere and our solar boundary is the main mission of this mission. But something happened, something REALLY BIG happened in this mission a few months ago. The fantastic thing that happened is that scientists discovered that something they thought existed, doesn't.  Imagine that. Scientists gathered the data that showed BOWSHOCK doesn't exist. Instead, it's more like BOW-WAVE.  I think that this is great because it shows that science is NOT always right and that models can CHANGE. Cool, eh?

Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission MMS uses four identical spacecraft (yes four) to study and pin point magnetic reconnection (a plasma energy process). This process is what fuels our space weather. Space weather is so interesting, because we don't know how to predict it and it can cause all kinds of problems here on Earth.

The folks at Rice University have done so much to make heliophysics learnable to all different ages. They also do Sun-Earth Day, which you need to sign up for because it is totally STEM-a-rific! This mission website contains lots of resources that teachers can use in the classroom. The FREE CD on Spaceweather is something that every classroom that teaches space science should have. And you can, because it's FREE. Click here to find out how you can get one. FREE.

Reuven Ramati High Energy Solar Spectroscope Imager (RHESSI) is in hospice right now, about to die. The mission is not. It is being recycled into the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) Mission

This new mission, STEREO,  uses two satellites to see the sun. It studies Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). This mission is a result of an engineering challenge;  How do we study energy from the Sun in space? One answer: Use two satellites that act together to capture the CME in two dimensions, stereo :) BTW-Another engineering challenge: How do satellites get into space? One answer: Piggy-back on a rocket!

And now for an auroral kinestetic activity. Auroras are produced when large amounts of energy hit the Earth, stretching the magnetosphere out of shape, and allowing some highly charged particles to enter the atmosphere. To model this... Stand up. Hold your arms over your head straight up. Make your hands circle to represent the magnetosphere being all bent out of shape. The energy is transferred into the atmosphere. The particles come down.  Roll your head in a circle to represent the transfer of energy to the Earth. Now, sigh. SIGH. Breathe in and out. The sigh represents the aurora light.

Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) did such an efficient job with it's mission that it completed the mission goals in record time with lots of fuel left over. It studied the violent colorful eruptions in the high latitudes we know as auroras, beautiful and mysterious auroras. To the right is an ACTUAL picture of the aurora from the international space station (ISS)

 

Scientists thought, 'Why not use the same spacecraft to facilitate another mission?' That is exactly what happened and Acceleration, Reconnection, Turbulence and Electrodynamics of the Moon’s Interaction with the Sun (ARTEMIS) Mission began where THEMIS left off. Artemis studies the moon's interactions with the Sun. 

Because I attended the HEA Heliophysics 2012 Workshop, I received a flash drive that contains RBSP, RHESSI and STEREO videos, and real good images of solar flares. It contains most of the information we were exposed to during this workshop and rubrics and answer keys. There's lots for HS level as well as a good 50 min lesson for MS in which you build a devise to measure magnetic field.

 The rest of the day was spent in discussing our approach to the professional development we will provide and reflecting on what we learned from the workshop. It was a little past 6pm when we were released. Two jam packed days of heliophysics! This time, I  understood what I learned and even asked for more. Imagine that :)

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