The Sun’s atmosphere can be as hot as 1 million degrees Celsius. This increase in temperature, despite the increased distance from the Sun’s primary energy source, has been observed in most stars. In 1942, Swedish scientist Hannes Alfvén hypothesized that the magnetizing waves of plasma could carry large amounts of energy along the Sun’s magnetic field from the interior to the corona, passing through the photosphere. before exploding with heat in the upper atmosphere of the Sun. This hypothesis has been tentatively accepted, but there is no evidence that these waves exist. Recent research by scientists finally confirms Alfvén’s nearly 80-year-old hypothesis and brings us one step closer to harnessing this high-energy phenomenon on Earth. The sun is made up almost entirely of plasma Halo problems have been around since the late 1930s, when the Swedish spectrographer Bengt Edlén and the German astrophysicist Walter Grotrian first observed phenomena in the sun’s corona that could only be observed. present if its temperature is a few million degrees Celsius. This represents temperatures up to 1,000 times hotter than the photosphere below it, which is the surface of the Sun that we can see from Earth. Estimating the heat of the photosphere has always been relatively simple: we simply measure the light reaching us from the Sun and compare it with spectral models that predict the temperature of the light source. Through decades of research, the temperature of the photosphere has always been estimated to be around 6,000°C. Edlén and Grotrian’s discovery that the Sun’s corona is much hotter than the photosphere – albeit farther from the core. of the Sun, its supreme source of energy – has given the scientific community a headache. Scientists looked at the properties of the Sun to explain this difference. The sun is made up almost entirely of plasma, which is a highly ionized gas that carries an electrical charge. The movement of this plasma in the convection zone – the upper part of the sun – generates enormous electric currents and strong magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are then pulled up from the Sun’s interior by convection, and enter its visible surface in the form of sunspots, which are clusters of magnetic fields that can form a variety of magnetic structures. differences in the Sun’s atmosphere. Alfvén reasoned that within the Sun’s magnetized plasma, any large movement of charged particles would perturb the magnetic field, creating waves that could carry enormous amounts of energy across vast distances. (from the surface of the Sun to its atmosphere). Heat travels along what is known as a flux tube from the sun before bursting into the corona, creating its high temperature. Measure the temperature of the Sun with an imaging spectrometer These magnetic plasma waves are now known as Alfvén waves, and the explanation for the heating of the circle led to Alfvén being awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics. The Interferometric Bidimetric Urban Spectrometer (IBIS) for imaging spectroscopy, installed at the Dunn Solar Telescope in the US state of New Mexico. This instrument has allowed researchers to make more detailed observations and measurements of the Sun. Combined with good observational conditions, advanced computer simulations, and the efforts of an international team of scientists from seven research institutions, they used IBIS to confirm the existence of waves for the first time. Alfvén in flux tubes from the sun. The researchers also expect more solar discoveries soon, thanks to new, groundbreaking missions and tools. The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter satellite is currently in orbit around the Sun, providing images and making measurements of the star’s unexplored polar regions. The launch of the new high-performance Solar telescope is also expected to enhance our observation of the Sun from Earth.

Conquer the universe. Photo: Space News. The Korean Ministry of Science, Information Technology and Communication hopes that by becoming the 10th member country of the Agreement, Seoul will further expand cooperation in the field of space with Washington, participating in various fields. the Artemis space exploration program. Accordingly, about 10 years later, Korea will have development steps in space technology on par with the previous potential country. The impetus for Korea to accelerate in the space race Compared to the space powers, Korea has a late start, but the development has positive and rapid results. After the launch of Naro rocket weighing 140 tons and failed in 2013, in 2016 South Korea carried out a Project to develop a spacecraft to explore the Moon worth more than 197.8 billion won (more than 166 million USD). ). As planned, this probe will be equipped with a series of cameras, sensors and spectrometers to collect data on the Moon as well as conduct space connectivity tests. At the beginning of this year, South Korea decided to invest 615 billion won (about 549 million USD) in space projects this year, including plans to launch the first rocket built and developed by the country. new satellites. Accordingly, South Korea also plans to launch a new 200-ton Nuri rocket later this year while a second launch, carrying a satellite, is scheduled for May 2022. In addition, the country will invest 322.6 billion won in projects to develop technology and services for new satellites, and plan to launch a new generation of medium-sized observation satellites next March in Kazakhstan. and is developing a new geostationary communication satellite to put into Earth orbit. Along with participating in the common playing field, Korea’s first lunar orbiter (KPLO – Korea Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter) scheduled to launch in August 2022 has also been developed in cooperation with NASA. In addition, ShadowCam, a device that can overcome visibility limitations to record images in dark areas on the Moon will be installed on this orbiter. ShadowCam is expected to return to the moon’s unlit areas to find potential landing points for the Artemis program. With this event, Korea has gradually developed domestic space technology, combined with the cooperation of other space powers in the world, will gradually occupy an important position in the field of space development. Generally speaking. With this participation, South Korea looks forward to setting a goal of sending its own spacecraft to the Moon by 2030. Accordingly, the country actively promotes challenging space exploration projects, by develop its own launch vehicle and by 2030 can achieve its dream of landing on the Moon. This first step will provide a solid foundation for Korea to conquer space. Korea wants to strengthen national security through this race? Over the centuries, we have witnessed many wars on land and at sea, and those wars have proved the strength of the victors and as well as the lesson of ensuring the safety of the nation, nation. And recently, we have heard and seen the so-called “ocean wars”, meaning the wars in the sea have also begun. As for outer space, decades ago, great powers in this field such as Russia and the United States developed it. And this same nation has also had competition in the conquest of space. The fact that Washington is conducting a manned lunar exploration program, a program to send astronauts to the Moon 50 years after the Apollo project in the 1970s is a sign that the US clearly has a great advantage in this field. race presence on Mars. However, experts say, so far, no country has been confident that it can send people to this planet located 225 million km from Earth. In the context of the race that has shown signs of heating in recent years, and with many worries that the Earth is becoming more and more crowded with humans, Russia and the US are both showing their ambition to soon bring humans to live. on the Red Planet and marks its sovereignty over space entities, including the Moon. From that perspective, the US wants to take action so that space activities can be transparent, preventing disputes over space activities. South Korea cannot stay out of this competition as an ally of the United States. South Korea has begun a feasibility study for a mission to discover the near-Earth asteroid – Apophis. This ensures competitiveness, but is also a first step to position the country on another planet with life in the future.

Illustration. That could improve your chances of discovering organisms in distant worlds. How to find exoplanets Since 1999, a process of detecting exoplanets called the transit method has found thousands of other worlds by measuring the brightness of the stars that these planets orbit around. No one knows if these planets have any life, but if scientists observe the Earth using this method, they will probably detect signs of life. Once those signs are identified from Earth observations, experts can then find similar clues in the exoplanets. Scientists have recently described this approach as a mission called the Earth Transit Observer (ETO). This year, they presented this at the 52nd Moon and Planetary Science Conference. Most of the exoplanets we know of are found by transit, according to the US NASA Space Agency. Modern telescopes such as the Kepler Space Telescope and the Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) can detect exoplanets when the path of a planet dims a star’s light overnight. slice. This is true even for stars thousands of light-years away. Scientists can estimate the magnitude of a planet based on the amount of light it is blocking and calculate the size of its orbit. The size and temperature of a host star as well as the distance between the planet and the star will provide additional clues as to whether exoplanets have life or not. The measure of transit can also hint at an exoplanet’s atmosphere. During a transit, a star’s light is filtered through atmospheric molecules. This could help researchers identify elements like oxygen and methane there. Such signs are often so small that astronomers need more transit observations to confirm the existence of these elements – according to a statement by the scientists. However, other factors on exoplanets and stars can affect the reading of molecules in the atmosphere. For example, planets change with the seasons, weather patterns and ocean currents. In addition, the activity of the Sun, such as the rise and fall of the solar wind, and the formation of solar storms also change. Any of these conditions can shape the behavior of the atmosphere, thus potentially affecting the proportion of molecules and elements in their atmosphere. Illustration. Finding “New Earth” Lead author Laura Mayorga of the planet-finding mission article in the Journal of Planetary Science says that, to understand those variables, “you need to know your stars as well as predict your planets. what do you look like ”. This can be a challenge when both the stars and the exoplanets are alien. “This is a very difficult problem,” says exoplanet astronomer at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel Maryland (USA). Luckily, scientists already have all of those answers for a pair of inhabited planets and stars. That is our Earth and the Sun. For the ETO mission, a small satellite with a device capable of imaging near-violet to near-infrared light spectrum will observe the Earth as it passes in front of the Sun. The spectrophotometer will check for water and carbon dioxide markers as well as biological markers – oxygen and methane, ozone and methane. Besides, it is to point out the favorable conditions for life (of course, also to see if the signs are unique to Earth or not). The transit technique used in such an investigation would be similar to the technique used by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study some of the thousands of exoplanets, scientists say. know moving through their host stars ”. Since we all know the climate change on Earth and the patterns of the Sun’s activity, scientists can observe how they affect the reading of atmospheric molecules and then apply them to our observations. close to the “new Earth”. “The Solar System is the only place where we know all the answers. We can test our technique, point out limitations and make a connection between the results, ”said Mayorga in the statement -“ Then we can connect that with Unanswered observations from exoplanets ”. Scientists plan to submit the ETO proposal to NASA’s Astrophysical Pioneer Program in the fall of 2021.