Hinode

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article documents a current spaceflight. Information may change rapidly as the mission progresses.

Artist's impression of the Hinode spacecraft (at the time called SOLAR-B) in orbit.

Hinode (ひので, Sunrise in Japanese), formerly known as Solar-B, is a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Solar mission with United States and United Kingdom collaboration. It is the follow-up to the Yohkoh ("Solar-A") mission and it was launched on the final flight of the M-V rocket from Uchinoura Space Center, Japan on September 22, 2006 at 21:36 GMT (September 23, 06:36 JST). Initial orbit is perigee height 280km, apogee height 686km, inclination 98.3 degree. Then the satellite maneuvered to the quasi-circular sun-synchronous orbit over terminator, which allows near-continuous observation of the Sun. On October 28, the probe's instruments captured their first images.

[edit] Instruments

Hinode carries three main instruments to study the Sun:

• SOT (Solar Optical Telescope): a 0.5-meter visible-light telescope
• XRT (X-ray Telescope): a Wolter telescope design that uses grazing incidence optics to image the solar corona's hottest components
• EIS (Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph) to try to identify the processes involved in coronal heating.

The SOT feeds both a spectropolarimeter and a pair of filtergraphs that can be used as a vector magnetograph. The SOT spatial resolution is expected to be 0.2 arc seconds, a factor-of-5 improvement over current space-based telescopes (the MDI on SOHO).

[edit] External links

• JAXA overview of mission
• Mission overview Quicktime Windows Media, preparation for launch Quicktime Windows Media, launch Quicktime Windows Media, press conference Quicktime Window Media (in Japanese)
• Solar-B project page of National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
• Solar-B project page of Mullard Space Science Laboratory
• Solar-B project page of PPARC
• Solar-B project page of NASA MSFC
• Solar-B brochure
• Amos, Jonathan. "Probe to study mighty explosions", BBC News, 2006-09-09. Retrieved on 2006-09-09.

This spacecraft- or satellite-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This article about a specific observatory, telescope or astronomical instrument is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.