Original subtitles

- It rises in the east, and bathes our planet in light.

It powers the machinery of nature, our weather,

encourages and sustains life on land and at sea,

where it warms our oceans from pole to pole.

When it sets in the west, it reveals to us its many billions

of sibling stars, populating the night sky.

We study our sun closely, and like a Rosetta Stone,

it can reveal the secrets of all the other stars.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(mesmerizing electronic music)

You cannot study the sun in isolation.

The influence of its power throughout the solar system

it created is persuasive and dominating.

The heliosphere is an immense magnetic bubble

extending beyond the orbit of Pluto.

It contains the solar wind of high and low speed

energetic particles and plasma that originate

at the surface of the sun.

After traveling for 36 years and 19 billion kilometers,

the Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached

the edge of this heliosphere.

- Voyager 1 has left the bubble around the sun

and entered interstellar space, the space between stars.

- There, it still senses the shock waves

emittted by the sun, which sound like this.

(whoosing, slightly wheezy wind)

To understand this source of power and its influences,

scientists conduct observations from the ground

and in space, where a flotilla of satellites

train sophisticated sensors upon the sun

and the space weather it creates.

- Space weather is the field that studies

how what's going on on the sun affects us

here on the Earth, in our near space environment,

and on the space environment on other planets.

The effects of space weather are so complicated

because we have to understand what's going on

at the sun, as well as all that stuff traveling

through interplanetary space, how that affects us

here on the Earth, and throughout the heliosphere,

that we need an entire fleet of instruments

to look at these various effects.

It's basically a system science, so you understand

one part of it in order to understand the other part of it,

and you have to put that whole puzzle together

to understand the full effects of space weather.

- GOES-P is an ongoing series of Earth observation

satellites that happen to keep a constant eye on the sun,

monitoring this space weather.

- When the spacecraft's sitting in space,

looking down at the Earth, and it stays stationary

like this, but the solar array out here moves

and tracks the sun, so that way it's always

looking at the sun and can take a scan every minute.

- The sun's outer atmosphere is constantly being

heated up by the solar surface, and this causes particles

from the sun's atmosphere to stream away constantly.

These streaming particles, which are filling our entire

solar system are called the solar wind.

- Different phenomenon from the sun

is constantly bombarding the Earth.

Although you might not know it, the solar weather

affects you every day down here as well,

and not only just astronauts, it affects people on Earth.

- The latest generation of GOES satellite is the GOES-R,

soon to be launched into orbit.

(mesmerizing electronic music)

Other low Earth orbiting platforms include

ESA's microsatellite Proba 2 testing new technology

and Pika sponsored by CNES, the French space agency.

(spacey electronic music)

Hinode is the Japanese word for sunrise.

It is a joint mission between JAXA, NASA, and ESA

to study the sun's magnetic cycles.

Its close up study has revealed

the complex granular textures of the sun's surface,

and insights into solar flares.

- A solar flare is a huge release of energy

that converts the magnetic energy of the sun

into heat, into light, it accelerates particles,

and can really heat up the plasma in order

of minutes to over 60 million kelvin.

- For a large eruption, the sun produces

a flash of light which we call the solar flare.

It also produces a huge ball of material

traveling away from the sun we call a coronal mass ejection,

and both of those phenomena can accelerate

subatomic particles which we call solar energetic particles.

These three things together make up a solar storm.

- To study the solar wind phenomenon,

a group of satellites were placed in a unique orbit

between Earth and the sun at what is called L1,

or Legrange point 1, a point of gravitational balance

between the Earth and the sun.

The Advanced Composition Explorer, or ACE,

observes energetic solar particles,

Wind studies radio waves and plasma that occur

in the solar wind and in the Earth's magnetosphere,

and SOHO the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.

- Using SOHO and using technique called helioseismology,

very similar to seismology on the Earth,

we're actually able to see inside the sun.

And so what we were able to do is see the layer

of the sun just below the visible surface

that we call the convection zone,

and that's where all sorts of dynamics are going on

the inside of the sun is bubbling up to the surface,

and that's really where all of the solar phenomena

that we see is first developed.

And so we were able to see underneath the surface,

and see these flows of solar plasma,

see the formation of sun spots.

This is something that's never been done before,

we're actually able to see the details inside of a star.

- Another high resolution space telescope was TRACE.

- Using details of the coronal loops,

in the previous images you would, from other satellites,

it would look like it was just one big loop,

and when you actually get to see TRACE,

you can see it's all these teeny tiny finely,

they almost look like threads,

and there's these teeny tiny loops,

and they're just breaking off and reforming,

and throwing plasma.

- Using x-ray and gamma ray solar flare imaging,

RISI explores the particle physics behind solar flares.

Another event subjecting the solar system to bombardment

is the CME, or coronal mass ejection event.

- A coronal mass ejection, or CME, is an eruption

of plasma from the sun that shoots out into space,

and it could affect us here at Earth

if that big ball of plasma were to hit us.

- NASA's twin stereo mission has one spacecraft

orbit the sun ahead of the Earth, and the other behind,

providing a stereoscopic view of the sun

to better understand these coronal mass ejections,

and the energetic particles of plasma.

- Solar energetic particles are particles of plasma

that are accelerated at the flare site

from the energy that's released in the flare,

and these particles can be accelerated up to

almost 80% of the speed of light.

- A coronal mass ejection, when it's traveling so fast

creates a shock, and that can create

solar energetic particles.

- In 2009, NASA commenced a new scientific program

called Living With A Star.

The crown jewel of this program

is the solar dynamics observatory or SDO,

the most advanced spacecraft ever designed

to study the sun and its dynamic behavior.

The program's goal is to develop

the scientific understanding necessary to address those

aspects of the sun that directly affect us here on Earth.

The spacecraft provides 16 megapixel,

ultra high definition imagery of the sun

in 13 different wavelengths.

From extreme ultraviolet frequencies

to the helioseismic and the magnetic imager,

and the atmospheric imaging assembly,

each wavelength was selected to highlight a particular

part of the sun's atmosphere.

The results are stunning.

They reveal fine details from the solar surface,

to the upper reaches of the sun's corona.

(dramatic orchestral music)

These solar events dwarf our planet,

and the science has brought a renewed focus

back to Earth's protective magnetic field.

- We are protected here on the surface of the Earth

from solar flares and coronal mass ejections

when they impact the Earth, due to the magnetic field

of the Earth called the magnetosphere,

which deflects the magnetic field

and the energetic particles, as well as the atmosphere,

which absorbs the higher levels of radiation.

- Fortunately we are protected here at Earth

from flares and coronal mass ejections

by the Earth's outer atmosphere.

It absorbs a lot of the energy from the increased light

from solar flares, but we're also protected

by the magnetic field.

You know the Earth has a North Pole and a South Pole,

anyone that had a compass knows that,

but this magnetic field of the Earth also protects us

from these charged particles, the plasma coming from

coronal mass ejections.

It largely deflects a lot of this direct energy.

A coronal mass ejection will come and effect

the Earth's magnetic field, and changing and hitting

the Earth's magnetic field causes other changes

on the far side away from the Earth that then accelerates

more particles and shoots those particles into

the North and South Pole that produce these

very beautiful waves of green and blue and red

that are just lovely to see.

(peaceful music)

- The sun is powered by a process called fusion,

and that happens at the very core of the sun,

where it is so intense, so hot, and so dense

that protons fuse together and create helium.

And this process fuels the sun and creates energy.

- As the energy moves outward boosted by magnetic fields,

the temperature drops.

- Up until that point, everything makes sense

in that the hottest part is in the middle

and everything gets gradually cooler as you move away,

but then something very interesting starts to happen,

which is that it starts to get hotter again.

- This layer, where the temperature begins to rise again,

is called the chromosphere.

It lies between the photosphere and the corona,

which is the hottest part of the sun's atmosphere.

To discover how this corona is powered,

another mission called IRIS was launched in 2013.

IRIS carries a single ultraviolet telescope

and imaging spectrograph, whose tight resolution

allows it to see features as small as 240 kilometers

on the sun's surface.

IRIS's first images showed a multitude of thin

fibrile-like structures that have never been seen before,

revealing enormous contrasts in density and temperature

occurring throughout the region.

- The light from the chromosphere

is difficult to interpret because of the complicated

interaction that the light has with the matter,

bounces around if you will, many times before

it's finally bounced towards us,

and this means that that interaction between

light and matter needs to be modeled in great detail,

due to not just advances in computational power

of computers, but in the computational techniques

that have been developed by the IRIS team.

We are in a position to do this.

- Data collected from the IRIS spacecraft

has shown that the interface region of the sun

is significantly more complex than previously known.

- Although the corona is extremely hot,

millions of degrees, it's at a low density,

so it doesn't actually take a lot of energy

to heat it to that temperature.

The chromosphere on the other hand

is a much higher density, while being at

lower temperature, and there's much more energy deposited

in the chromosphere than the corona.

So that a tiny fraction of that energy in the chromosphere

escaping into the corona, is plenty to power

all of the processes that we see

from heating to such extreme temperatures

to driving the solar wind that fills the whole solar system

impacting all the planets, including our own.

We hope to better understand these fascinating

and important processes with IRIS.

- This energy streaming from the sun causes

other narcan effects on the planets of the solar system.

- The northern lights are particles that are being shot into

the North Pole and the South Pole,

that produce these beautiful greens and blues and reds.

They're not direct particles from the sun.

A coronal mass ejection will come and affect

the Earth's magnetic field, and changing and hitting

the Earth's magnetic field causes other changes

on the far side away from the Earth,

that then accelerates more particles

and shoots those particles then into the

North and South Pole that produce

these very beautiful waves of green and blue and red

that are just lovely to see.

- Armed with more questions about the solar wind

and energetic particles, NASA launched

a pair of probes into Earth orbit.

Named after the famous scientist who discovered

the radiation belt surrounding our planet,

the Van Allen probes were dispatched to study

the radiation phenomenon and the magnetic fields

around the Earth in greater detail.

- During the course of geomagnetic activity,

disturbances caused by flares on the sun,

by big blobs of plasma coming out from the sun

towards the Earth, the Earth's magnetic field

is battered and shaken.

Some of that energy is captured in the Earth's

magnetic field, and through a variety of processes

that energy energizes particles in the Earth radiation belts

up to energies that are hazardous

to spacecraft and astronauts.

The two spacecraft are focused on the dynamic

radiation belts in the Earth's inner magnetosphere.

They're the only spacecraft that focus on those,

consequently they're a critical component

in the series of phenomena that link the sun to the Earth.

(heavenly orchestral music)

- Solar flares and CMEs are all driven

by magnetic reconnection,

this is where the sun churns up the magnetic field,

that's inherent in it, and then it causes

oppositely directed magnetic fields to then annihilate.

But you can't just get rid of magnetic, you can't just

get rid of energy, you have to convert the energy

and transfer energy into other things such as

plasma motions, accelerating the plasma,

heating up the plasma, and also giving out more light.

- We are protected here on the surface of the Earth

from solar flares and coronal mass ejections

when they impact the Earth, due to the magnetic field

of the Earth called the magnetosphere,

which deflects the magnetic field and

the energetic particles as well as the atmosphere

which absorbs the higher levels of radiation.

- But this magnetic field of the Earth also protects us

from these charged particles, the plasma coming from

coronal mass ejections, it largely deflects a lot

of this direct energy.

- The phenomenon of magnetic reconnection

is not well understood, so NASA has launched

a multi-satellite mission called MMS

to try to unlock the secrets of our magnetic field.

- The MMS mission is a mission consisting of

four spacecraft, which will fly in close constellation

to measure a process called magnetic reconnection.

- The universe is full of plasma,

and it's full of magnetic fields,

and all over the place in the universe

you have one plasma colliding with another.

An example of that is the solar wind coming in

and colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.

And then the magnetic energy in the plasma,

some fraction of that magnetic energy is converted

very rapidly into plasma energy.

So you can think of it as kind of like a magnetic explosion.

(explosion)

And the reason this is important is because

these explosions drive a lot of the weather patterns

that we see in the magnetosphere,

so what space scientists like to refer to as space weather.

These space weather phenomena can have impact

on our everyday lives, it can actually affect

communication satellites, the power grid,

so we'd really like to understand how

these magnetic explosions work.

- We need to measure reconnection in more than one location.

We need to measure it in, basically, how it varies in space,

how it varies in all three spacial dimensions,

and that requires the tetrohedra.

The additional, fantastic benefit that that provides

is that it will actually enable us to recognize

that we are looking within a reconnecting region

much easier than a single spacecraft.

- The ideal situation is that we would like

the four spacecraft to kind of be surrounding

this region where the explosion is happening,

so the separation of the spacecraft

is about ten to 100 kilometers,

which may seem like a long distance,

but in terms of the magnetosphere, which is absolutely huge,

this is really a microscopic region

that we're trying to cover.

- MMS has in a nutshell, two orbital phases,

which are designed to study reconnection.

- On the day side, basically you have a situation

where the solar wind is just constantly running into

Earth's magnetic field, and this is really great for MMS

because we know that there, at some point, MMS

is going to encounter this region, and our hope

is that since this process is always happening,

we're going to get lucky and actually fly right through

the magnetic explosion as it's happening.

Now on the night side, the situation

is a little bit different.

So what happens is you have a more gradual

buildup of magnetic energy in the tail,

and these reconnection processes, these magnetic explosions

can just sort of pop off randomly.

We don't really know when it's going to happen,

or where it's going to happen in the tail.

- When you try to send both of those,

if we want to understand how the magnetosphere works,

I would believe that both of those scenarios

are also very important for other applications,

such as on the sun, in the solar wind,

in planetary magnetospheres,

and in many astrophysical objects,

as well as in the laboratory.

- We hope that it's going to allow us to improve our models,

so that we can put the right physics in it,

and actually make predictions about

where and when reconnection is going to happen,

and this will help us make our space weather models

more predictively powerful.

The instruments that are actually going to be measuring

the particles in space are collecting them much more rapidly

at a much higher cadence than they have

on previous missions, about a factor of 100.

So whereas it would take a previous generation

particle instrument about three or four seconds

to build up the whole picture of the sky,

it's going to take MMS about 30 milliseconds,

so it really is sort of game changing technology.

- The current two dozen or so operating satellites

will be enhanced with new missions under development.

The Japanese space agency will be launching

their next solar physics satellite SOLAR-C.

The Indian Space Agency will launching Aditya,

to study the sun's coronoal mass ejections

and magnetic field structures.

The Deep Space Climate Observatory

will maintain real time solar wind monitoring

capabilities critical to the accuracy and lead time

of space weather alerts and forecasts.

The European Space Agency's solar orbiter will be launched

in 2018 and fly closer to the sun than the planet Mercury

to study how the sun creates and controls its heliosphere.

Also planned for a 2018 launch is NASA's Solar Probe Plus.

It will approach the sun more closely

than any other probe before, just 3.8 million miles

from the surface of the star.

Scientists have long wanted to send a probe through

the sun's outer atmosphere.

The spacecraft would be exposed to temperatures

approaching 1,370 degrees Celsius.

Together they will continue to monitor,

study, and discover the secrets of this nuclear anvil

that supplies us with light, life.

Aside from the science, the images captured

reveal to us the beauty and power of this,

our nearest star, in all its grandeur.

(dramatic orchestral music)

(whoosing, whistling space sounds)