A sounding rocket fitted with technology to gather 1,500 images of the Sun in flat five minutes is set for launch on Monday. Capturing five images per second, the Rapid Acquisition Imaging Spectrograph Experiment mission will focus in on the split-second changes that occur near active regions on the Sun.
These are areas of intense and complex magnetic fields that can give birth to giant eruptions on the Sun that shoot energy and particles out in all directions, the US space agency said. ‘Even on a five-minute flight, there are niche areas of science we can focus on well. There are areas of the Sun that need to be examined with the high-cadence observations we can provide,’ said Hassler, solar scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.