posted 12-29-2020 05:05 PM               

NASA Approves Heliophysics Mission to Explore Sun

NASA has approved the Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer, or EZIE, to help understand the Sun and Earth as an interconnected system.

Understanding the physics that drive the solar wind and solar explosions – including solar flares and coronal mass ejections – could one day help scientists predict these events, which can impact human technology and explorers in space.

The Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) will study electric currents in Earth's atmosphere linking aurora to the Earth's magnetosphere – one piece of Earth's complicated space weather system, which responds to solar activity and other factors. The Auroral Electrojet (AE) index is a common measure of geomagnetic activity levels, even though the details of the structure of these currents is not understood.

EZIE will launch no earlier than June 2024. The total budget for the EZIE mission is $53.3 million. The principal investigator for the mission is Jeng-Hwa (Sam) Yee at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

EZIE is an investigation comprising a trio of CubeSats that will study the source of and changes in the auroral electrojet, an electric current circling through Earth's atmosphere around 60-90 miles above the surface and extending into the Earth's magnetosphere. The interaction of the magnetosphere and the solar wind compresses the Sun-facing side of the magnetosphere and drags out the night-time side of the magnetosphere into what is called a "magnetotail." Auroral electrojets are generated by changes in the structure of the magnetotail. The same space weather phenomena that power the beautiful aurora can cause interference with radio and communication signals and utility grids on Earth's surface, and damage to spacecraft in orbit.

"EZIE's use of instrument technology proven on Earth science CubeSat missions is just one example of how science and technology development at NASA go hand in hand across disciplines," said Peg Luce, deputy director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Funding for this mission of opportunity comes from the Heliophysics Explorers Program, managed by the Explorers Program Office at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.