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The rare phenomenon of a total solar eclipse will occur on April 8 2024. (Photo: NASA)
JAKARTA – The rare phenomenon of a total solar eclipse will occur on April 8 2024. The United States Space Agency (NASA) took advantage of this moment to launch three scientific rockets into space.
Forbes reported, Thursday (28/3/2024), a total solar eclipse 115 miles long will cross parts of Mexico, 15 US states and Canada, as well as a partial solar eclipse throughout the American continent, this event will cause a sudden decrease in sunlight -arrive.
NASA also took advantage of the moment by firing three rockets during the eclipse. In fact, the function of this rocket is varied, here is a detailed explanation:
1. Serpent Deity
The NASA project, Atmospheric Perturbations Around The Eclipse Path (APEP), aims to investigate the process by which sunlight and temperature decreases affect the Earth's upper atmosphere. The name of the APEP rocket is taken from the name of the serpent god of ancient Egyptian mythology, Serpent Deity, the mortal enemy of the Sun God Ra.
This type of NASA suborbital rocket will not be launched completely. Instead it will be released from the Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia which has a light level of 81% of the sun which will be blocked by the moon. This moment will occur at 15.33 local time even though the eclipse will occur between 14.06 and 16.33.
2. Moon Shadow
The function of this rocket is not the first simultaneous measurements made from different locations in a very specific layer of the Earth's atmosphere during a solar eclipse.
On Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 10:00, 10:35, and 11:10 New Zealand time, three similar rockets were launched into the moon's shadow during another partial solar eclipse. The three were launched from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, where 90% of partial solar eclipses occur, reaching altitudes of 216 miles, 219 miles and 218 miles.
All three scientific payloads were successfully retrieved for flight back from the Wallops Flight Facility for the second part of the APEP experiment. Just like from New Mexico, rockets will be launched before, during and after the peak of the eclipse.
“Each rocket will fire off four secondary instruments the size of two-liter soda bottles that also measure the same data points, so it's similar to the results of fifteen rockets, while only launching three,” said Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, where he directs the Space and Atmospheric Instrumentation Lab.
3. Rapid Ripples
APEP's mission is to look for disturbances—changes in the Earth's atmosphere—during the eclipse, with four small scientific instruments that measure changes in electric and magnetic fields, density and temperature. The rocket will enter the ionosphere, where the air becomes electrified. This is where ions and electrons increase and decrease in temperature and density as the sun rises and sets. A rapid solar eclipse is expected to cause ripples to penetrate the ionosphere.
“This is an electrified region that reflects and refracts radio signals, and also impacts satellite communications as the signals pass through,” Barjatya said.
“Understanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is critical to ensuring our increasingly communications-dependent world can run smoothly.”
MG/Maulana Kusumadewa Iskandar
(msf)