Nasa has approved a major contribution to Japan’s Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope (EUVST) mission.
Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, the mission involves a solar telescope that will study the way the sun’s atmosphere is released to become the solar wind. It is a constant rain of particles that flow through the solar system and create ‘space weather’ that causes the polar lights on the earth to flare up and interrupt the technology. Along with other solar missions, such as Solar Orbiter from the European Space Agency and Parker Solar Probe from Nasa, EUVST will help provide a comprehensive study of space weather.
EUVST will study the sun in detail on ultraviolet wavelengths. It is also known as Solar-C and is aimed at launching in the mid 2020s. Japan’s previous solar mission, Hinode of Solar-B, was launched in 2006.
Nasa has also announced funding for its Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) mission. Led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, EZIE will study electric currents in the Earth’s atmosphere to better understand how the aurora is created by the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetic field. EZIE consists of three small “CubeSats” and starts after June 2024.