PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Delivering
the most detailed images of the sun's lower atmosphere ever
recorded from space, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph
(IRIS), built and operated by Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT) for NASA,
has received more time to deliver groundbreaking space science. A
recent $19.4 million contract extends
Lockheed Martin's support for the orbiting observatory through
September 2018, with a further
extension possible through September
2019.
"IRIS has taken more than 24 million images or spectral
measurements of the sun since its launch three years ago, and it
has led to more than 115 scientific papers," said Dr. Bart De
Pontieu, IRIS science lead at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology
Center. "In this new extension, IRIS will be able to study a wide
range of phenomena, including the source regions of fast solar
wind, a stream of charged particles that continuously emanates from
the sun at speeds of 1,000 km/s and fills the space around the
Earth."
Scientists at NASA, Lockheed Martin and other institutions
around the world have used IRIS to make exciting discoveries about
what causes the heating of the solar atmosphere and how solar
flares are triggered and release magnetic energy. The observatory
views only a small part of the sun at any time, but through careful
planning by the IRIS science planning team, IRIS was able to catch
nine of the largest flares (X-class) and almost 100 of the second
largest class of flares (M-class) and numerous weaker C-class
flares.
NASA continues to fund several solar science programs designed,
built and operated by Lockheed Martin. Both the Atmospheric Imaging
Assembly instrument onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the
Solar Optical Telescope onboard the Hinode satellite received
extensions, as well. The ATC also has experience building
instruments to study the Earth, a lineage that includes the Earth's
new "selfie" camera, EPIC, and newer concepts to study carbon
levels and other environmental phenomena.
The IRIS program will now move into a period studying the tail
end of the solar activity cycle, which just went through a period
of maximum activity. Some of the largest flares and most powerful
coronal mass ejections occur during this phase of the solar cycle.
In the next few years IRIS will also focus on:
- Using IRIS observations for more specific computer models that
reveal what heats the sun's chromosphere, a layer of the Sun's
atmosphere that is responsible for most of the ultraviolet light
that we receive on Earth.
- Coordinated, highly complementary observations with a slew of
ground-based telescopes that are coming online with powerful new
instrumentation such as the German GREGOR telescope, the Swedish
Solar Telescope in the Canary Islands and Big Bear Solar
Observatory, California.
- The first solar observing campaigns newly approved for the
large, international radio-telescope in Chile called ALMA. Coordinated observations of
ALMA and IRIS will provide a new window into what drives the
dynamics and heating of the low solar atmosphere.
About Lockheed Martin
Headquartered in Bethesda,
Maryland, Lockheed Martin is a global security and aerospace
company that employs approximately 98,000 people worldwide and is
principally engaged in the research, design, development,
manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology
systems, products and services.
For additional information, visit our website:
www.lockheedmartin.com.
Media Contact:
Mark E. Lewis, +1 408-742-3516;
mark.e.lewis@lmco.com
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SOURCE Lockheed Martin