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Friday May 29, 2009
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A telescope capable of studying the surface of the sun is now tied to a giant balloon and scheduled to launch as early as this Monday from Sweden, according to Space.com. The telescope, dubbed Sunrise, will float from the Esrange Space Center in Sweden over the arctic to a safe touchdown in Canada in six days, the report said. NASA is treating the project as an experiment and will use the telescope to snap high-resolution photos of the sun's surface during the flight.
The telescope and its accompanying scientific instruments are a 2-ton payload. The giant balloon, meanwhile, is larger than a stadium and filled with almost 34 million cubic feet of helium. It will fly at an altitude of almost 23 miles, and rotate horizontally using a tracking system in order to stay lined up with the sun. The goal of the project is to help scientists figure out some of the mysterious phenomena caused by magnetic fields on the surface of the sun, according to the report. (Image credit: Sweden Space Corp.)
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