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Award ID | Description | Recipient | Total Value | Awarding Agency | Funding Agency | Set Aside | NAICS | PSC | Award Date | Start Date | End Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DEEP SOUTH TELESCOPE SUPPORT | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $285,382 | DEPT OF THE NAVY | DEPT OF THE NAVY | — | 541990All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | R405SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: OPERATIONS RESEARCH/QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS | Jul 24, 2025 | Jul 24, 2025 | Jul 25, 2026 | ||
| EXECUTE A BALANCED SCIENCE PROGRAM BASED ON DISCIPLINE-SPECIFIC GUIDANCE FROM THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES OF SCIENCES, ENGINEERING, AND MEDICINE, ADMINISTRATION PRIORITIES, AND DIRECTION FROM CONGRESS. PARTICIPATE AS A KEY PARTNER AND ENABLER IN THE AGENCY S EXPLORATION INITIATIVE, FOCUSING ON SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH OF, ON, AND FROM THE MOON, LUNAR ORBIT, MARS, AND BEYOND. ADVANCE DISCOVERY IN EMERGING FIELDS BY IDENTIFYING AND EXPLOITING CROSS-DISCIPLINARY OPPORTUNITIES BETWEEN TRADITIONAL SCIENCE DISCIPLINES DEVELOP A DIRECTORATE-WIDE, TARGET-USER FOCUSED APPROACH TO APPLIED PROGRAMS, INCLUDING EARTH SCIENCE APPLICATIONS, SPACE WEATHER, PLANETARY DEFENSE, AND SPACE SITUATIONAL AWARENESS. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $597,569 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | May 7, 2025 | Jan 13, 2025 | Jan 12, 2028 | ||
| 'BACKYARD WORLDS: BINARIES' -- DISCOVERING BENCHMARK BROWN DWARFS THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $79,927 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Jul 31, 2024 | Nov 4, 2024 | Nov 3, 2026 | ||
| ENHANCING THE CAPABILITIES OF CLEDB AN OPEN SOURCE CORONAL VECTOR MAGNETIC FIELD INVERSION TOOL FOR THE HELIOPHYSICS COMMUNITY | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $63,398 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Feb 20, 2024 | Mar 1, 2024 | Feb 28, 2025 | ||
| THE EXOASTEROIDS CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT - DISCOVERING INFRARED OUTBURSTS WITH WISE | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $59,561 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Sep 28, 2023 | Nov 10, 2023 | Nov 9, 2025 | ||
| DEEP SOUTH TELESCOPE (DST) OPERATION | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $234,660 | DEPT OF THE NAVY | DEPT OF THE NAVY | — | 541990All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | R405SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: OPERATIONS RESEARCH/QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS | Jul 24, 2023 | Jul 26, 2023 | Jul 25, 2025 | ||
| THE PROPOSED EFFORT WILL DETERMINE THE CONTRIBUTION OF SUBSURFACE FLOWS OF ACTIVE REGIONS (ESPECIALLY INFLOWS AND OUTFLOWS) ON FLUX CANCELLATION AT LOW LATITUDES AND THUS ON THE RESULTING POLEWARD MIGRATION OF MAGNETIC ACTIVITY OF OPPOSITE POLARITY. THIS WILL BE CARRIED OUT THROUGH A STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE SUBSURFACE FLOWS NEAR ACTIVE REGIONS AND THE CORRESPONDING MAGNETIC FLUX DURING SOLAR CYCLES 24 AND 25. THE STUDY WILL INVESTIGATE IF SUCH FLOWS SHOULD BE INCLUDED AS KEY INGREDIENTS IN SURFACE FLUX TRANSPORT MODELS AND, AS A CONSEQUENCE, IN SOLAR CYCLE PREDICTIONS. THE GOAL IS TO DERIVE THE ROLE OF THESE SUBSURFACE FLOWS IN MAGNETIC FLUX TRANSPORT. SURFACE FLUX TRANSPORT MODELS ALREADY INCLUDE INFORMATION ABOUT POLEWARD MERIDIONAL FLOW AND DIFFUSION TO MODEL THE EVOLUTION OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD AND ACTIVITY CYCLE. SOME OF THESE MODELS EXPLAIN THE AMPLITUDE VARIABILITY OF THE SOLAR CYCLE WITH INFLOWS TOWARD ACTIVE REGIONS AND RARE EVENTS, SUCH AS CROSS-EQUATORIAL FLUX PLUMES. CROSS-EQUATORIAL MERIDIONAL FLOW IS ONE OF THE PROCESSES THAT MAY LEAD TO MAGNETIC FLUX CANCELLATION LATE IN THE SOLAR CYCLE WHERE FIELDS WITH OPPOSITE POLARITY COME IN CLOSE PROXIMITY AND CANCEL EACH OTHER ACROSS THE EQUATOR. SIMULATIONS HAVE SHOWN THAT EVEN SINGLE BIG ACTIVE REGIONS NOT FOLLOWING JOY'S LAW EMERGING VERY NEAR OR ACROSS THE SOLAR EQUATOR CAN SIGNIFICANTLY AFFECT THE AMPLITUDE OF THE POLAR FIELD. WHILE SUBSURFACE FLOWS OF ACTIVE REGIONS AND LARGE-SCALE FLOWS HAVE BEEN STUDIED BEFORE, THEIR SPECIFIC ROLE IN MAGNETIC FLUX TRANSPORT HAVE NOT YET BEEN EXPLORED. PROPOSED STUDY WILL LEAD TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERCONNECTION BETWEEN SUBSURFACE FLOW PATTERNS NEAR ACTIVE REGIONS AND SURFACE FLUX TRANSPORT. THE PROPOSAL IS THUS RELEVANT TO THE FOLLOWING GOAL OF THE SDO PROJECT: HOW IS ACTIVE REGION MAGNETIC FLUX SYNTHESIZED, CONCENTRATED, AND DISPERSED ACROSS THE SOLAR SURFACE? THE PROPOSAL ALSO ADDRESSES THE GOAL DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN'S ACTIVITY AND PREDICT THE VARIATIONS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE HELIOPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $523,995 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Jan 31, 2023 | Apr 10, 2023 | Apr 9, 2027 | ||
| DEEP SOUTH TELESCOPE (DST) OPERATION | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $93,063 | DEPT OF THE NAVY | DEPT OF THE NAVY | — | 541990All Other Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services | R405SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: OPERATIONS RESEARCH/QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS | Sep 24, 2022 | Sep 26, 2022 | Jul 25, 2023 | ||
| 21-LWSTM21_2-0005, HELIOPHYSICS LIVING WITH A STAR TOOLS AND METHODS | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $189,956 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ14GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; R&D ADMINISTRATIVE EXPENSES | May 23, 2022 | Apr 15, 2022 | Oct 14, 2024 | ||
| FEATURE EXTRACTION TOOLS FOR EXPLORATORY ANALYSIS OF REMOTE-SENSING SOLAR OBSERVATIONS | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $74,388 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | May 5, 2022 | May 1, 2022 | Dec 30, 2024 | ||
| 'BACKYARD WORLDS: COOL NEIGHBORS' - DISCOVERING EXTREME BROWN DWARFS THROUGH CITIZEN SCIENCE. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $39,979 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Aug 9, 2021 | Aug 2, 2021 | Jul 31, 2023 | ||
| THE PROPOSED WORK WILL PROVIDE A UNIQUE STUDY OF THE DYNAMICS OF NSSL USING THE LONGEST DATA SET PROCESSED IN A SELF-CONSISTENT MANNER. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $504,075 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AJ11GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY R&D SERVICES; GENERAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY; BASIC RESEARCH | Jul 10, 2021 | Apr 1, 2021 | Mar 31, 2026 | ||
| THE PHYSICAL QUANTITIES CALCULATED FROM HMI FILTERGRAMS EXHIBIT SMALL BUT IMPORTANT SYSTEMATIC ERRORS RELATED TO THE SDO ORBITAL VELOCITY THAT SHOW UP IN LINE-OF-SIGHT (LOS) DOPPLER VELOCITY V, LOS MAGNETIC FIELD M, AND THE VECTOR FIELD B. RESULTS SHOW A C. 1% NOT-QUITE-LINEAR SCALE ERROR IN VELOCITY AND SOMEWHAT LARGER 24- AND 12-HOUR PERIODIC VARIATIONS IN REPORTED MAGNETIC FIELD VALUES. THOUGH SMALL THEY ARE SYSTEMATIC AND HINDER SOME ANALYSES OF SOME SOLAR QUANTITIES THAT DEPEND ON FRAME-TO-FRAME DIFFERENCES IN THE REPORTED MAGNETIC FIELD SUCH AS ENERGY AND HELICITY TRANSPORT THROUGH THE | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $133,089 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR11SPACE R&D SERVICES; SPACE FLIGHT, RESEARCH AND SUPPORTING ACTIVITIES; BASIC RESEARCH | Jan 27, 2021 | Apr 1, 2021 | Mar 29, 2023 | ||
| SOLAR PHYSICS RELIES HEAVILY ON PROBING THE SUN USING DIAGNOSTICS AVAILABLE ACROSS THE ELECTROMAGNETIC SPECTRUM IN ORDER TO SAMPLE MULTIPLE REGIONS OF THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE. THE FORMATION MECHANISMS AT DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS OFFER INSIGHTS INTO A VARIETY OF UNDERLYING PHYSICAL PROCESSES. SPACECRAFT ABOVE THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE ARE THE ONLY WAY TO ACCESS THE DIAGNOSTICS IN THE UV AND XRAY, OR THEY CAN LEVERAGE THE ADVANTAGE OF CONTINUOUS, SEEING-FREE COVERAGE. GROUND-BASED OBSERVATORIES INSTEAD CAN PROBE DIAGNOSTICS IN THE VISIBLE, INFRARED, AND RADIO WITH GREAT DETAIL AND FLEXIBILITY. PRECISELY COMBINING DATA FROM THESE DIFFERENT OBSERVATORIES HAS PROVED TO BE HIGHLY IMPORTANT TO INCREASING OUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE STRUCTURING AND DYNAMICS OF THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE. BOTH SPACE- AND GROUND-BASED INSTRUMENTS CONTINUE TO INCREASE THEIR SPATIAL RESOLUTION TO BETTER RESOLVE PHYSICAL PROCESSES AT THEIR FUNDAMENTAL SCALES. THIS, HOWEVER, INCREASES THE REQUIREMENTS AND COMPLEXITY OF PRECISELY REMAPPING THESE DIFFERENT IMAGES ONTO A COMMON SPATIO-TEMPORAL REFERENCE. SOME OF THESE ISSUES ARE FOUND ACROSS ALL INSTRUMENTS, SUCH AS OPTICAL DISTORTIONS OR TIME-VARYING JITTER AND ROLL. OTHER PROBLEMS MIGHT BE MORE SPECIFIC TO GROUND-BASED DATA INCLUDING ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION, TURBULENT IMAGE DISTORTION, AND VARIABLE TRANSMISSION. GENERALLY, THE COORDINATE DEFINITIONS GIVEN IN THE DATA HEADERS ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY ACCURATE FOR MANY SCIENTIFIC NEEDS. THEREFORE, IT IS NECESSARY TO USE THE DATA THEMSELVES, OR OTHER CALIBRATIONS, TO ACHIEVE THE CORRECT MAPPING AND GENERATE A PROPERLY ALIGNED DATASET SUITABLE FOR PROPER SCIENTIFIC EXPLOITATION. THIS CURRENTLY REQUIRES EXPERT KNOWLEDGE, MANUAL CALIBRATION, AND THE USE OF LIMITED-AVAILABILITY CODES WRITTEN IN A PROPRIETARY LANGUAGE. WE PROPOSE TO PRODUCE AN OPEN-SOURCE, PROPERLY ENGINEERED TOOLKIT IN PYTHON THAT CAN ADDRESS SOME OF THESE ISSUES AND MAKE IT MORE FEASIBLE FOR THE BROADER COMMUNITY TO SEAMLESSLY COMBINE DATASETS FROM SATELLITES AND GROUND-BASED INSTRUMENTATION. THIS WOULD EMPOWER BROADER USE OF DATA FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES IN A ROBUST FASHION. THIS DEVELOPMENT WOULD USE RELY HEAVILY ON EXISTING PROJECTS, SUCH AS SUNPY, ASTROPY, AND OTHERS, TO HANDLE SOME OF THE KEY UNDERLYING TASKS OF DATA RETRIEVAL, COORDINATE DEFINITION, DATA-CUBE MANIPULATION. THIS TOOLKIT WILL PROVIDE TOOLS TO PERFORM SPECIFIC TASKS SUCH AS NON-RIGID ALIGNMENT BETWEEN IMAGES, CORRECTION FOR PLATE-SCALE DISTORTIONS, AND COMPENSATION FOR ATMOSPHERIC VARIATIONS. WE PLAN TO WORK WITH THE PYTHON IN HELIOPHYSICS COMMUNITY AND ENSURE THAT THE TOOLKIT WILL BE COMPLIANT WITH THEIR AGREED UPON SOFTWARE STANDARDS. THIS TOOLKIT WILL ALSO BE LEVERAGED IN THE ONGOING DEVELOPMENT OF AN OPEN-SOURCE VISUALIZATION TOOL THAT WILL ALLOW SPACECRAFT AND GROUND-BASED DATA TO BE EASILY VIEWED TOGETHER, PROBING ALSO THE TEMPORAL AND SPECTRAL DIMENSIONS OF THE DATACUBES GENERATED BY DIFFERENT INSTRUMENTS. THIS WILL BE APPLIED ESPECIALLY TO DKIST OBSERVATIONS, ALLOWING USERS TO JOINTLY EXPLORE THOSE COMPLEX DATA TOGETHER WITH DATA FROM A VARIETY OF NASA ASSETS (SDO, IRIS, HINODE, PSP, AND OTHERS). THIS VISUALIZATION TOOL WILL MAKE THE DATA MORE ACCESSIBLE WHILE THE PRECISE CO-ALIGNMENT OF THE DATA FROM VARIOUS SOURCES WILL ALLOW SCIENTIFICALLY IMPORTANT FEATURES TO BE IDENTIFIED MORE EFFICIENTLY. WITH ACCURATE CO-ALIGNMENT AND USER-FRIENDLY DATA MANIPULATION, THIS WILL BE A KEY WAY FOR USERS TO IDENTIFY, COMBINE, AND EXPLORE DATA FROM MULTIPLE OBSERVATORIES. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $52,370 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Dec 4, 2019 | Oct 30, 2019 | May 24, 2023 | ||
| SCIENCE GOAL AND OBJECTIVES: WE PROPOSE TO MEASURE THE FLOWS FROM THE SURFACE DOWN TO THE UPPER SHEAR LAYER IN THE CONVECTION ZONE AROUND 5% BELOW THE SURFACE AND PROVIDE OBSERVATIONAL CONSTRAINTS FOR THE LATITUDINAL, LONGITUDINAL, AND TEMPORAL VARIATIONS OF THE FLOW COMPONENTS. THE GOAL IS TO ESTABLISH THE EXTENT TO WHICH THESE LARGE-SCALE FLOWS DRIVE THE EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF MAGNETIC FLUX AT THE SOLAR SURFACE AND THE SUBSEQUENT POLEWARD FLUX TRANSPORT. THIS WILL LEAD TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE GENERATION AND EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL-SCALE MAGNETIC FIELDS. TO ACHIEVE THIS GOAL, WE WILL FOCUS ON SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE LARGE-SCALE FLOWS NEAR LOCATIONS OF ACTIVITY, INCLUDING ACTIVITY COMPLEXES AND ACTIVE LONGITUDES, AND SEARCH FOR SUBSURFACE MARKERS OR EVEN PRECURSORS OF MAGNETIC ACTIVITY. SECOND, WE WILL FOCUS ON FLOWS AT MID- TO HIGH LATITUDES WHERE DIFFUSING FLUX IS BEING TRANSPORTED POLEWARD. THIRD, WE WILL FOCUS ON THE SOLAR-CYCLE VARIATION OF FLOWS DERIVED FROM LOCATIONS OF HIGH OR LOW ACTIVITY AND THE NORTH-SOUTH ASYMMETRY IN MAGNETIC ACTIVITY AND ITS CONNECTION TO SUBSURFACE FLOWS AND WHETHER THESE FLOWS ARE PRECURSORS OF THE NEXT-CYCLE ACTIVITY. WE WILL STUDY THE FLOWS IN THREE DEPTH RANGES: THE LAYERS CLOSE TO THE SURFACE, WHERE THE DENSITY CHANGES BY SEVERAL ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE, THE NEAR-SURFACE SHEAR LAYER (NSSL, AT ABOUT 35 MM), WHERE THE ROTATION RATE SHOWS A LOCAL MAXIMUM, AND THE LAYERS IN BETWEEN THESE TWO. THE FLOWS IN THESE LAYERS HAVE THE MOST DIRECT INFLUENCE ON SURFACE ACTIVITY. METHODOLOGY: WE WILL PERFORM A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE LARGE-SCALE HORIZONTAL FLOWS (ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOWS) FROM THE SURFACE TO A DEPTH OF ABOUT 40 MM (94% SOLAR RADIUS) FROM THE EQUATOR TO 70 DEGREE LATITUDE OR HIGHER. WE WILL FOCUS ON THEIR VARIATION WITH LATITUDE, LONGITUDE, AND TIME. WE WILL STUDY THE VARIATION FROM ONE ROTATION TO THE NEXT AND DURING THE COURSE OF A SOLAR CYCLE. TO DERIVE THE SUBSURFACE FLOW COMPONENTS, WE WILL APPLY RING-DIAGRAM ANALYSIS (A WELL-ESTABLISHED HELIOSEISMIC TECHNIQUE) TO SDO/ HMI DOPPLERGRAMS. AS A STARTING POINT, WE WILL USE THE FLOW VALUES DERIVED FROM THE STANDARD HMI RING-DIAGRAM PIPELINE WITH THREE DIFFERENT TILE SIZES. WE HAVE PREVIOUSLY STUDIED THE SUBSURFACE FLOWS IN THE NEAR-SURFACE LAYERS (TO A DEPTH OF 16 MM) WITH VELOCITIES FROM THE HMI 15-DEGREE RING-DIAGRAM PIPELINE. FOR THE PROPOSED STUDY, WE WILL, IN ADDITION, USE TILES AS SMALL AS 5 DEGREES FOR A BETTER SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL RESOLUTION NEAR THE SURFACE AND BIG TILES OF 30 DEGREE TO COVER THE NSSL. WE WILL THEN CUSTOMIZE THE RING-DIAGRAM ANALYSIS MODIFYING THE GRID SIZE AS WELL AS THE GRID SPACING AND THE TRACKING RATE TO OPTIMIZE THE ANALYSIS FOR THE PROPOSED PROJECT. WE WILL DERIVE THE SYSTEMATIC VARIATIONS OF THE FLOWS WITH DISK POSITION AND CORRECT THEM. TO DERIVE THE FLOWS NEAR THE NSSL, WE WILL ALSO APPLY HELIOSEISMIC TIME-DISTANCE ANALYSIS TO SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS. SINCE TIMEDISTANCE AND RING-DIAGRAM ANALYSES HAVE DIFFERENT ERROR CHARACTERISTICS, THIS WILL ALLOW US TO CROSS-VALIDATE THE RESULTS FROM BOTH TECHNIQUES. TO DERIVE FLOWS AT THE SOLAR SURFACE, WE WILL USE F-MODES DERIVED FROM SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS AND AN APPROPRIATE LCT TECHNIQUE APPLIED TO SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS AND VECTOR MAGNETOGRAMS. THIS WILL ALLOW US TO COMPARE THREE SETS OF SURFACE FLOWS FROM DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES AND DATA SETS. PROPOSED CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FOCUS TEAM EFFORT: THE PROPOSED STUDY OF THE LARGE-SCALE FLOWS IN THE UPPER CONVECTION ZONE WILL PROVIDE OBSERVATIONAL CONSTRAINTS, WHICH WILL BE CRUCIAL FOR THE MODELING OF THE SOLAR INTERIOR AND THE SOLAR FLUX TRANSPORT. THIS WILL LEAD TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE GENERATION AND EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL-SCALE MAGNETIC FIELDS AND, AS A CONSEQUENCE, PROVIDE CONSTRAINTS FOR FORECASTING SOLAR ACTIVITY. THE PROPOSED STUDY THEREFORE ADDRESSES THE OBJECTIVE OF FOCUSED SCIENCE TOPIC (4): UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL-SCALE SOLAR PROCESSES AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE SOLAR INTERIOR. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $767,501 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Nov 29, 2019 | Jan 1, 2020 | Dec 31, 2024 | ||
| SUBSURFACE ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOWS FROM RECONSTRUCTED MDI DOPPLERGRAMS SCIENCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: THE PROPOSED WORK WILL PROVIDE A UNIQUE DATA SET OF ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOWS IN THE UPPER CONVECTION ZONE USING CONTINUOUSLY AVAILABLE LOW-TELEMETRY DOPPLERGRAMS FROM MICHELSON DOPPLER IMAGER (MDI) INSTRUMENT ON BOARD SOLAR AND HELIOSPHERIC OBSERVATORY. THIS WOULD BE A UNIQUE DATA SET FOR THE SOLAR PHYSICS COMMUNITY SINCE THE CONTINUOUS MDI OBSERVATIONS HAVE NEVER BEEN USED TO PRODUCE SUBSURFACE FLOWS USING RING-DIAGRAM (RD) TECHNIQUE. THE OBJECTIVE IS TO INFER SUBSURFACE HORIZONTAL FLOWS USING THE RING-DIAGRAM TECHNIQUE, ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL TOOLS OF LOCAL HELIOSEISMIC ANALYSIS. THIS METHOD HAS BEEN WIDELY USED TO MEASURE THE FLOWS USING HIGH-RESOLUTION DOPPLERGRAMS FROM GONG, MDI AND HMI. HOWEVER FOR RING ANALYSIS, THE OBSERVATIONS FROM MDI HAVE BEEN SUITABLE ONLY DURING THE "DYNAMICS PROGRAM" WHICH NORMALLY OCCURRED ABOUT 2 MONTHS IN A YEAR. DUE TO TELEMETRY LIMITATIONS, THE DATA FROM OTHER PERIODS WERE DOWN-SAMPLED, TRUNCATED AT OUTER SOLAR LIMB AND DOWNLOADED IN LOWER RESOLUTION WHICH IS NOT SUITABLE FOR STANDARD RING ANALYSIS. AS A RESULT, RD ANALYSIS USING MDI DATA CAN BE CARRIED OUT INFREQUENTLY ONLY DURING THE 2-MONTH PERIOD IN A YEAR ALTHOUGH MDI OBSERVATIONS ARE AVAILABLE CONTINUOUSLY OVER A PERIOD OF 15 YEARS COVERING TWO MINIMUM AND ONE MAXIMUM PERIODS OF SOLAR ACTIVITY. THUS, OUR AIM IS TO USE THE CONTINUOUSLY AVAILABLE LOW-TELEMETRY MDI DATA FROM THE LOW-ACTIVITY PERIOD BEFORE CYCLE 23 THROUGH THE RISING PHASE OF CYCLE 24. THIS WILL ALLOW US TO PRODUCE CONTEMPORARY DATA SETS OF ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOWS IN THE UPPER CONVECTION ZONE FOR THE COMPLETE SOLAR CYCLE 23. NOTE THAT THE FLOWS FROM GONG ARE AVAILABLE FROM JUNE 2001 AND DO NOT COVER THE LOW-ACTIVITY AND RISING PHASE OF CYCLE 23. METHODOLOGY: WE WILL USE MDI SPHERICAL HARMONIC (SH) TIME SERIES FROM JSOC, TO RECONSTRUCT SEVERAL 30 BY 30 DEGREE PATCHES AROUND CENTRAL MERIDIAN AND EQUATOR. USE OF THIS SH TIME SERIES HAS SEVERAL ADVANTAGES FIRST, IT HAS BEEN GENERATED FROM THE CORRECTED VELOCITY IMAGES (DISTORTION, APODIZATION ETC.), AND SECONDLY, A SMOOTH TRANSITION NEAR THE SURFACE LAYERS CAN BE PERFORMED BY APPLYING SPECIFIC FILTERS TO THE SH TIME SERIES IN SPHERICAL GEOMETRY. RECONSTRUCTION OF VELOCITY IMAGES USING THE SH COEFFICIENT TIME SERIES (INVERSE SH DECOMPOSITION) WILL BE CARRIED OUT WITH THE EXISTING TIME-DISTANCE PIPELINE DEVELOPED BY US AT NATIONAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY. THIS PIPELINE IS WELL TESTED AND VALIDATED BY MEASURING DEEP MERIDIONAL FLOW PROPERTIES. THESE BIG RING PATCHES (30 DEGREE IN DIAMETER AS OPPOSED TO 15 DEGREE PATCHES USED IN THE STANDARD RING DIAGRAM) WILL BE SUBSEQUENTLY USED TO INFER SUBSURFACE FLOW TO A DEPTH OF 30 MM BY PERFORMING CUSTOM RING ANALYSIS. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT, OUR DATA PRODUCT, THE MERIDIONAL FLOW AND ITS TEMPORAL VARIATIONS AT DIFFERENT DEPTHS OVER 15 YEARS WILL PROVIDE AN ADDITIONAL INDEPENDENT DATA SET TO COMPARE WITH MEASUREMENTS OBTAINED FROM THE TIME-DISTANCE TECHNIQUE. AVAILABILITY OF THIS DATA PRODUCT WILL ALLOW INTERESTED RESEARCH TEAMS TO INVESTIGATE SOLAR CYCLE AND LONG-TERM VARIATIONS OF FLOWS AND DYNAMICS OF THE UPPER CONVECTION ZONE OVER THE WHOLE MDI TIME EPOCH IN CONTRAST TO THOSE AVAILABLE OVER A LIMITED PERIOD OF ONLY TWO MONTHS A YEAR. IN SUMMARY, WE PLAN TO GENERATE NEW DATA PRODUCTS FROM THE CONTINUOUS MDI OBSERVATIONS SPANNING A PERIOD OF ABOUT 15 YEARS. THESE PRODUCTS INCLUDE: (I) ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOWS AS A FUNCTION OF THE LATITUDE, DEPTH AND TIME, (II) CUSTOM DATA CUBES IN AND AROUND WELL-KNOWN LARGE ACTIVE REGIONS FOR BETTER INVESTIGATION OF FLOW PATTERN AROUND THEM, AND (III) RECONSTRUCTED DOPPLERGRAMS FOR THE ENTIRE DURATION OF MDI OBSERVATIONS. THESE DATA PRODUCTS WILL ENHANCE THE USAGE OF MDI DOPPLERGRAMS. ALL THESE DATA PRODUCTS WILL BE AVAILABLE TO THE PUBLIC. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $56,806 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Mar 22, 2019 | Mar 1, 2019 | Feb 29, 2020 | ||
| SCIENCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: WE PROPOSE TO PERFORM A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE SUBSURFACE AND SURFACE FLOWS ASSOCIATED WITH ACTIVE REGIONS AND THEIR EVOLUTION USING SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS AND MAGNETOGRAMS. THE EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE REGIONS IS OF FUNDAMENTAL IMPORTANCE IN SOLAR PHYSICS. SINCE ACTIVE REGIONS ARE FORMED FROM STRONG MAGNETIC FIELDS GENERATED BY A SOLAR DYNAMO LOCATED IN THE SOLAR INTERIOR, THEIR EVOLUTION FROM EMERGENCE THROUGH DECAY PROVIDES CRUCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE SOLAR DYNAMO AND THUS ABOUT THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN S ACTIVITY. SUBSURFACE FLOW PARAMETERS CAN SERVE AS PROXIES OF THE MAGNETIC STRUCTURE IN SUBSURFACE LAYERS AND LINK THE DYNAMICS OF SUBSURFACE LAYERS WITH THE CONDITIONS OF THE MAGNETIC ACTIVITY IN THE PHOTOSPHERE AND ABOVE. STUDIES OF SUBSURFACE FLOWS HAVE FOCUSED MAINLY ON FLARE-PRODUCTIVE REGIONS OR ON THE EMERGENCE OF ACTIVE REGIONS. HOWEVER, A SYSTEMATIC STUDY OF THE EVOLUTION OF SUBSURFACE FLOWS OF ACTIVE REGIONS FROM EMERGENCE TO DECAY WITH REGARD TO THEIR MORPHOLOGY HAS YET TO BE PERFORMED. ACTIVE REGIONS EVOLVE DURING THEIR LIFE TIME AND THE SUBSURFACE FLOWS ARE EXPECTED TO CHANGE AS WELL. WE PROPOSE TO STUDY THE SUBSURFACE FLOWS OF ACTIVE REGIONS OBSERVED BY SDO/HMI THROUGHOUT THE SOLAR CYCLE. WE WILL FOCUS ON, FOR EXAMPLE, LONG-LIVED ACTIVE REGIONS, EMERGING AND DECAYING REGIONS, FLARING AND NON-FLARING REGIONS, AND REGIONS WITH AND WITHOUT ROTATING SUNSPOTS. THE GOAL IS TO ESTABLISH COMMON FEATURES OF THE SUBSURFACE DYNAMICS OF ACTIVE REGIONS AND DIFFERENTIATE THEM FROM CHARACTERISTICS THAT DEPEND ON THEIR MORPHOLOGY. THE RESULTING FLOW PROFILES WILL PROVIDE CRUCIAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE MAGNETIC FLUX OF ACTIVE REGIONS AND HOW IT IS SYNTHESIZED, CONCENTRATED, AND DISPERSED. DATA: WE WILL USE DOPPLERGRAMS AND MAGNETOGRAMS OBTAINED BY THE HMI INSTRUMENT ONBOARD THE SDO SPACECRAFT. THESE HIGHRESOLUTION OBSERVATIONS ALLOW US TO MEASURE SUBSURFACE FLOWS AT GREAT DISTANCES FROM DISK CENTER AND THUS FOLLOW THE EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE REGIONS DURING THEIR DISK PASSAGE FOR A MUCH LONGER PERIOD OF TIME THAN POSSIBLE WITH PREVIOUS OBSERVATIONS. THE AVAILABILITY OF SIMULTANEOUS VECTOR MAGNETOGRAMS WILL ALLOW US TO FOLLOW THE EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE REGIONS AT THE SOLAR SURFACE AND TO DERIVE SURFACE FLOWS AS WELL. METHODOLOGY: WE WILL PERFORM A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE SUBSURFACE AND SURFACE FLOWS OF ACTIVE REGIONS AND THEIR TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL EVOLUTION. WE WILL DERIVE THE SUBSURFACE FLOWS DURING THE DISK PASSAGE OF EACH ACTIVE REGION WITH RING-DIAGRAM AND TIMEDISTANCE ANALYSIS (TWO WELL-ESTABLISHED HELIOSEISMIC TECHNIQUES) OF HMI DOPPLERGRAMS. IN ADDITION TO USING FLOWS FROM THE HMI RING-DIAGRAM PIPELINE, WE WILL CUSTOMIZE THE TECHNIQUES TO DERIVE FLOWS ON A FINER TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL GRID APPROPRIATE FOR ACTIVE REGIONS. AT THE SURFACE, FLOWS AND EVOLUTION OF MAGNETIC ACTIVITY WILL BE DERIVED FROM THE CORRESPONDING HMI VECTOR MAGNETOGRAMS USING ESTABLISHED CORRELATION TRACKING TECHNIQUES TO DERIVE SURFACE FLOWS. THIS WILL ALLOW US TO MATCH THE SURFACE WITH THE SUBSURFACE EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE REGIONS. RELEVANCE: THE PROPOSED STUDY OF SUBSURFACE DYNAMICS OF ACTIVE REGIONS WILL LEAD TO A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THE EVOLUTION OF ACTIVE REGIONS. THE PROPOSAL IS THUS RELEVANT TO THE FOLLOWING GOAL OF THE SDO PROJECT: HOW IS ACTIVE REGION MAGNETIC FLUX SYNTHESIZED, CONCENTRATED, AND DISPERSED ACROSS THE SOLAR SURFACE? THE PROPOSAL ALSO ADDRESSES THE GOAL DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN S ACTIVITY AND PREDICT THE VARIATIONS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE HELIOPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $524,743 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Dec 26, 2018 | Mar 1, 2019 | Feb 28, 2023 | ||
| SCIENCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: THE MERIDIONAL FLOW PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN THE UNDERSTANDING OF A BROAD RANGE OF SOLAR PHENOMENA. FOR EXAMPLE, THE SPEED AND PROFILE OF THE MERIDIONAL FLOW DETERMINES THE DURATION OF THE SOLAR CYCLE IN FLUX-TRANSPORT DYNAMO MODELS, ITS RISE AND FALL PATTERN, THE POLAR FIELD STRENGTH AND THE TIMING OF ITS REVERSAL. THE STRENGTH OF THE POLAR FIELD OF THE PREVIOUS MINIMUM PLAYS AN IMPORTANT ROLE IN DETERMINING THE STRENGTH OF THE NEXT CYCLE. THEREFORE IT IS IMPORTANT TO KNOW THE EVOLUTION OF THE POLAR FIELD, WHICH IS LARGELY GOVERNED BY THE TRANSPORT BY MERIDIONAL CIRCULATION. WE PROPOSE TO STUDY THE MERIDIONAL FLOW IN THE SOLAR CONVECTION ZONE FROM THE SURFACE TO THE NEAR-SURFACE SHEAR LAYER USING RING-DIAGRAM ANALYSIS AND IN THE LOWER CONVECTION ZONE USING TIME-DISTANCE ANALYSIS ANALYZING SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS. WE WILL THEN ASSIMILATE THE MERIDIONAL FLOW AND THE SURFACE MAGNETIC FIELD FROM SDO/ HMI INTO FLUX-TRANSPORT DYNAMO MODELS AND DRIVE THE MODELS WITH THE FLOWS. TO COVER MORE THAN ONE SOLAR CYCLE, WE WILL ANALYZE MDI DATA SETS. THE GOALS OF THE PROPOSED PROJECT ARE (I) TO DETERMINE THE INFLUENCE OF THE MERIDIONAL FLOW ON DYNAMO-GENERATED MAGNETIC FIELDS DURING DIFFERENT PHASES OF THE SOLAR CYCLE AND (II) TO USE THE RESULTS TO PREDICT THE POLAR FIELDS DURING THE UPCOMING CYCLE MINIMUM AND THE STRENGTH OF CYCLE 25. THIS IS TIMELY SINCE SDO/HMI OBSERVATIONS COVER SOLAR CYCLE 24 AND THE HIGH SPATIAL RESOLUTION OF HMI ALLOWS US TO MEASURE SUBSURFACE MERIDIONAL FLOWS AT HIGH LATITUDES TO ABOUT 75 DEGREE. BY ASSIMILATING MERIDIONAL FLOWS AND SURFACE MAGNETIC FIELDS FROM SDO/HMI INTO DYNAMO MODELS, WE WILL BE ABLE TO DETERMINE HOW WELL FLOW MEASUREMENTS CAN CONSTRAIN THE DYNAMO. RELEVANCE: THIS PROPOSAL DIRECTLY ADDRESSES THE FIRST SCIENCE GOAL FROM THE HELIOPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY: DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN S ACTIVITY AND PREDICT THE VARIATIONS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT . THE WORK PROPOSED HERE WILL GREATLY ENHANCE THE SCIENTIFIC RETURN OF THE SDO/HMI MISSION. METHODOLOGY: WE PROPOSE TO DETERMINE THE MERIDIONAL FLOW FROM SDO/HMI DOPPLERGRAMS USING TWO DIFFERENT HELIOSEISMIC TECHNIQUES. TO DETERMINE THE MERIDIONAL FLOW FROM THE SURFACE TO A DEPTH OF ABOUT 40 MM ON TIME SCALES OF DAYS AND MONTHS, WE WILL USE RINGDIAGRAM ANALYSIS WITH THREE TILE SIZES. TO DISCERN THE CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ACTIVE REGIONS, WE WILL STUDY FLOWS FROM SMALL 5 DEGREE TILES. TO REACH DEPTHS OF ABOUT 40 MM AND STUDY THE INFLUENCE OF THE NEAR-SURFACE SHEAR LAYER, WE WILL USE FLOWS FROM 30 DEGREE TILES. WE WILL CROSS-VALIDATE THESE RESULTS WITH THOSE FROM THE STANDARD 15 DEGREE TILES COVERING DEPTHS FROM THE SURFACE TO ABOUT 16 MM. TO DETERMINE THE MERIDIONAL FLOW IN THE LOWER HALF OF THE CONVECTION ZONE ON TIME SCALES OF TWO YEARS, WE WILL USE A CUSTOMIZED TIMEDISTANCE ANALYSIS. THE KEY POINT IS TO PERFORM THE ANALYSIS IN SPHERICAL GEOMETRY, WHICH ALLOWS US TO ISOLATE ACOUSTIC WAVES PROPAGATING TO DEEP LAYERS. THIS WILL ALLOW US TO CONSTRAIN THE RETURN FLOW NEAR THE BASE OF THE CONVECTION ZONE AND THE NUMBER OF CELLS WITH DEPTH. WE WILL USE AN ENSEMBLE KALMAN FILTER TO ASSIMILATE THE SUBSURFACE MERIDIONAL FLOW AND THE SURFACE MAGNETOGRAMS INTO THE DYNAMO MODEL AND OPERATE THE MODEL IN THE ANALYSES AND THE FORECAST MODE, SO THAT WE CAN RESOLVE UNCERTAINTIES IN MODEL INGREDIENTS IN THE ANALYSES PHASE AND CORRECTLY HINDCAST AND FORECAST THE POLAR FIELDS AND PROPERTIES OF SOLAR CYCLES 24 AND 25 IN THE FORECAST PHASE. WE WILL CHECK THE CONSISTENCY BETWEEN THE MERIDIONAL FLOWS DETERMINED IN THE UPPER AND LOWER CONVECTION ZONE ON DIFFERENT TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL SCALES, AS WELL AS WHETHER THE MODEL WORKS BEST WITH HIGH OR LOW MAGNETIC DIFFUSIVITY. WE WILL DETERMINE THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE MERIDIONAL FLOW AT HIGH LATITUDES FOR THE POLEWARD FLUX TRANSPORT AND POLAR FIELD FEATURES, AND IN TURN FOR THE CYCLE 25 AMPLITUDE | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $615,284 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Aug 13, 2018 | Aug 13, 2018 | Jun 25, 2022 | ||
| THIS PROPOSAL TARGETS THE INSTRUMENT AND TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT (ITD) ELEMENT OF THE H-TIDES PROGRAM. MAGNETIC FIELDS FORM A FOUNDATION FOR ALL SOLAR ACTIVE PHENOMENA FROM TINY G-BAND BRIGHT POINTS TO SUNSPOTS AND CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS (CMES). THEY SERVE AS A RESERVOIR OF ENERGY FOR FLARES, PLAY A CRITICAL ROLE IN TRIGGERING MECHANISMS FOR CMES, AND PROVIDE THE MEANS OF TRANSPORTING ENERGY FROM THE PHOTOSPHERE TO CORONA. THUS, ARGUABLY, THE MAGNETOGRAPH SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS A CRITICAL INSTRUMENT FOR EVERY HELIOPHYSICS MISSION THAT STUDIES THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE OR THE EFFECTS OF SOLAR ACTIVITY ON HELIOSPHERE. WHILE THE IMPORTANCE OF MAGNETOGRAPH INSTRUMENT IS WIDELY RECOGNIZED BY THE COMMUNITY, IN PRACTICE, THEIR INCLUSION AS A SPACECRAFT PAYLOAD IS OFTEN LIMITED DUE TO WEIGHT AND SIZE RESTRICTIONS. THE MAGNETOGRAPH CONCEPTS WHICH ARE CURRENTLY IN USE REQUIRE SAMPLING A MAGNETO-SENSITIVE SPECTRAL LINE AT DIFFERENT POSITIONS ACROSS SOLAR DISK. SPECTROGRAPH-BASED MAGNETOGRAPHS ARE SUPERIOR IN TERMS OF SPECTRAL SAMPLING, BUT REQUIRE SCANNING OF SOLAR IMAGE TO BUILD UP ITS MAGNETIC MAP. NARROW-BAND FILTER-BASED MAGNETOGRAPHS TAKE SIMULTANEOUS SNAPSHOTS OF EXTENDED AREA OF SOLAR SURFACE, BUT REQUIRE TAKING MULTIPLE OBSERVATIONS WITH DIFFERENT WAVELENGTH OFFSET BETWEEN SEPARATE FRAMES. BOTH APPROACHES MAY REQUIRE RELATIVELY LARGE NUMBER OF OPTICAL AND ELECTRO-MECHANICAL ELEMENTS FOR SPECTRAL TUNING AND/OR SPATIAL SCANNING. THESE ADDITION ELEMENTS TEND TO INCREASE THE OVERALL WEIGHT AND SIZE OF INSTRUMENT, AND THE ADDED COMPLEXITY MIGHT AFFECT THE RELIABILITY OF SYSTEM. GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: AS THE MAIN GOAL OF THIS PROJECT, WE WILL EXPLORE A NOVEL ALTERNATIVE TO THE STANDARD FILTER BASED MAGNETOGRAPH, WHICH WE CALL THE SIMPLEST MAGNETOGRAPH. THE PROPOSED INSTRUMENT CONCEPT IS BASED ON MEASURING A BROAD-BAND POLARIZATION OVER THE WHOLE LINE PROFILE, WHICH COULD BE DONE WITHOUT MOVING OPTICAL ELEMENTS AND COMPLICATED OPTICAL SCHEMES. IF SUCCESSFUL, THIS CONCEPT WILL LEAD TO CREATION OF EXTREMELY SIMPLE AND COMPACT LINE-OF-SIGHT (LOS) OR FULL VECTOR MAGNETOGRAPH SUITABLE FOR SPACE MISSIONS. SUCH INSTRUMENT COULD BE ESPECIALLY ATTRACTIVE FOR SPACE WEATHER-ORIENTED MISSIONS. THE METHODOLOGY: THE CONCEPT OF THE PROPOSED MAGNETOGRAPH IS BASED ON A WELL-KNOWN FACT THAT ZEEMAN SPLIT SPECTRUM LINES IN A LINEOF- SIGHT (LOS) FIELD ARE ASYMMETRIC, WITH ONE OF THE V STOKES PROFILE LOBES STRONGER THAN THE OTHER IN A WAY THAT SWITCHES WITH POLARITY. IN TRANSVERSE FIELD, THERE IS A NET LINEAR POLARIZATION AVERAGED ACROSS THE LINE PROFILE BECAUSE THE CENTRAL PART OF THE SPECTRUM LINE IS SATURATED RELATIVE TO THE WINGS SO THE WING POLARIZATION DOMINATES IN Q AND U POLARIZATION PROFILES. THUS, MEASURING NET POLARIZATION OVER THE ENTIRE SPECTRAL LINE PROFILE (WITHOUT SCANNING IN SPECTRAL OR SPATIAL DIRECTIONS) ALLOWS TO DETERMINE BOTH POLARITY AND THE FIELD STRENGTH (MAGNETIC FLUX) FOR EACH PIXEL OF IMAGE. PRELIMINARY TESTS WITH STOKES-V SPECTRA TAKEN WITH GONG INSTRUMENT SUPPORT THE FEASIBILITY OF THIS APPROACH. PROPOSED CONTRIBUTION: THE NSO TEAM WILL INVESTIGATE THE CONCEPT OF THIS SIMPLEST MAGNETOGRAPH BOTH VIA MODELING AND LABORATORY MEASUREMENTS. WE WILL ALSO BUILD A PROTOTYPE INSTRUMENT. THE PERFORMANCE OF THIS MAGNETOGRAPH WILL BE TESTED AT THE GROUNDBASED TELESCOPES OPERATED BY THE NSO. IN ADDITION, THE PROTOTYPE INSTRUMENT CAN BE PROPOSED FOR FLIGHT ON THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION AND PERHAPS ALSO ON MISSION OF OPPORTUNITIES SUCH AS THE UK/EU LAGRANGE L5 MISSION. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $558,041 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Aug 13, 2018 | Aug 13, 2018 | Jun 25, 2024 | ||
| A MAJOR GOAL IN CONTEMPORARY ASTROPHYSICS IS TO EXTEND THE STUDY OF STELLAR ATMOSPHERES TO THE MUCH COOLER ATMOSPHERES OF GAS-GIANT EXTRASOLAR PLANETS. ONE KEY PATHWAY IS THE IDENTIFICATION OF FREE-FLOATING SUBSTELLAR OBJECTS THAT NOT ONLY SHARE COMMON TEMPERATURES WITH EXOPLANETS BUT ALSO COMMON MASSES AND THUS SURFACE GRAVITIES. IN RECENT YEARS, SEARCHES FOR EVER COLDER FREE-FLOATING OBJECTS HAVE STEADILY PUSHED THE CENSUS TO EVER LOWER MASSES AND FINALLY INTO THIS LONG-SOUGHT PLANETARY-MASS REGIME (5-15 JUPITER MASSES; Y DWARFS). THE EMPIRICAL BACKBONE OF THE EXPLORATION OF THESE NEW SUBSTELLAR SAMPLES IS THE ACCURATE MEASUREMENT OF DISTANCES VIA TRIGONOMETRIC PARALLAXES. DISTANCES ALLOW US TO MAKE EMPIRICAL SEQUENCES OF ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE VERSUS COLOR AND SPECTRAL TYPE TO COMPARE TO BETTER STUDIED NORMAL BROWN DWARFS, AS WELL AS PROVIDING ABSOLUTE BOLOMETRIC FLUXES AND THEREBY LUMINOSITIES AND TEMPERATURES. HOWEVER, UNLIKE SIMPLE PHOTOMETRY OR SPECTROSCOPY, PARALLAX MEASUREMENTS ARE TIME CONSUMING AND PRONE TO LARGE SYSTEMATIC ERRORS WHEN ATTEMPTED BY COMBINING DATA FROM MULTIPLE TELESCOPES AND BANDPASSES. SPITZER/IRAC IS POISED TO DELIVER THE DEFINITIVE SAMPLE OF PARALLAX DISTANCES FOR THE COLDEST BROWN DWARFS. IT IS THE ONLY FACILITY CAPABLE OF MEASURING HIGH-PRECISION ASTROMETRY EFFICIENTLY FOR A LARGE SAMPLE OF SUCH FAINT SUBSTELLAR OBJECTS, AS VALIDATED BY OUR PAST WORK. SPITZER WAS NEVER INTENDED TO DELIVER HIGH QUALITY ASTROMETRY, BUT USING OUR CUSTOM BUILT ASTROMETRIC PIPELINE WE HAVE SUCCESSFULLY PRODUCED THE FIRST PRECISE IRAC ASTROMETRY AND MEASURED DISTANCES FOR A SMALL INITIAL SAMPLE OF THE COLDEST BROWN DWARFS (DUPUY&KRAUS 2013). WE SHOWED THAT IN SPITE OF THE SEEMINGLY SUBTLE SPECTRAL CHANGES FROM T8 TO Y0 (ONLY 2 SUBTYPES), THE MEAN EFFECTIVE TEMPERATURE PLUMMETS BY ALMOST A FACTOR OF 2, FROM ~700 K FOR T8 DWARFS TO ~400 K FOR Y0 DWARFS. EVEN IN THIS SMALL SAMPLE, WE FOUND SOME OBJECTS THAT SEEMED TO DEFY THE EXPECTATION THAT LATER SPECTRAL TYPE CORRESPONDS TO COOLER TEMPERATURE. THIS MAY POINT TO COMPLEXITY IN THE ATTEMPT TO SPECTRAL TYPE PLANETARY MASS OBJECTS, AS OTHER PARAMETERS LIKE GRAVITY OR NONEQUILIBRIUM CHEMISTRY COULD BECOME JUST AS IMPORTANT AS TEMPERATURE. HOWEVER, A SAMPLE LARGER THAN ONE OR TWO OBJECTS PER SPECTRAL TYPE BIN IS REQUIRED TO MAKE ANY DEFINITIVE STATEMENTS ABOUT PHYSICAL TRENDS. WE PROPOSE A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE COLDEST KNOWN BROWN DWARFS BY MEASURING ACCURATE DISTANCES FROM SPITZER PARALLAXES. WE WILL USE ALL DATA IN THE SPITZER ARCHIVE SUITABLE FOR PARALLAXES TO PERFORM A HOMOGENEOUS ANALYSIS OF A COMPLETE SAMPLE OF THE LATEST T AND Y DWARFS. OUR PROPOSED WORK WILL ROUGHLY TRIPLE THE SAMPLE SIZE AND FILL IN MAJOR GAPS AT THE T9.5 AND>Y0 SPECTRAL TYPES (~300-350 K) THAT PRODUCED SOME OF THE MOST PUZZLING RESULTS IN OUR PREVIOUS WORK. THE LONGER TIME BASELINE WILL ENABLE>3X MORE PRECISE PARALLAX MEASUREMENTS THAN IS POSSIBLE FROM THE GROUND FOR SIMILARLY FAINT OBJECTS. THE RESULTING EMPIRICAL SEQUENCES OF ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE WILL PROVIDE A TOUCHSTONE FOR COMPARING BOTH MODELS AND DATA, E.G., FROM DIRECTLY IMAGED EXOPLANETS. WE WILL ALSO USE THE ABSOLUTE FLUXES TO DERIVE BOLOMETRIC LUMINOSITIES FOR OUR SAMPLE. COMBINING THESE WITH WELL-ESTABLISHED MODEL RADII WILL RESULT IN ROBUST TEMPERATURE DETERMINATIONS THAT WILL ALLOW DEEPER SCRUTINY OF WHETHER TEMPERATURE OR A MORE COMPLEX MIX OF PHYSICAL PROPERTIES DRIVES SPECTRAL VARIATIONS IN THE PLANETARY MASS REGIME. FINALLY, OUR ASTROMETRIC MONITORING WILL NATURALLY ALLOW US TO EXAMINE THE POPULATION S KINEMATICS, AND THE LONG TIME BASELINE WILL ALLOW A NOVEL SEARCH FOR LOWER MASS COMPANIONS VIA NONLINEAR PERTURBATIONS. OUR PROPOSED WORK WILL RESULT IN A DEFINITIVE BENCHMARK SAMPLE FOR BOTH THE BROWN DWARF AND EXOPLANET COMMUNITIES, PROVIDING CONTEXT FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE EFFORTS TO CHARACTERIZE BROWN DWARFS, DIRECTLY IMAGED PLANETS, AND THE COOL TRANSITING PLANETS PROBED BY SECONDARY ECLIPSE MEASUREMENTS. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $146,825 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | May 2, 2018 | Apr 6, 2018 | Dec 31, 2021 | ||
| SUBSURFACE ZONAL AND MERIDIONAL FLOW FROM BIG RINGS: A DATASET FOR STUDYING THE LONG-TERM EVOLUTION OF MAGNETIC FLUX AND THE DYNAMICS OF THE CONVECTION ZONE | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $50,053 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Feb 22, 2018 | Feb 1, 2018 | Jan 31, 2019 | ||
| SCIENCE GOALS THIS PROPOSAL WILL ENABLE: FULL DISK PHOTOSPHERIC MAGNETOGRAMS ARE ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT DATASETS OF MODERN RESEARCH IN SOLAR PHYSICS. THE MAGNETOGRAMS ARE INVALUABLE FOR UNDERSTANDING AND MODELING OF PRACTICALLY ALL SOLAR PHENOMENA INCLUDING SOLAR CYCLE, CORONA, SOLAR ERUPTIVE ACTIVITY, HELIOSPHERE, AND SPACE WEATHER. TWO MAJOR LIMITATIONS OF HISTORICAL MAGNETOGRAPH DATA, WHICH ARE CURRENTLY IN PUBLIC DOMAIN, INCLUDE (1) THEIR LIMITED TIME COVERAGE (MID-1970-PRESENT) AND (2) POSSIBLE UNCERTAINTIES IN CALIBRATION OF MAGNETIC FIELDS OF EARLY MAGNETOGRAMS, WHICH COULD BE ALLEVIATED VIA COMPARISON WITH MULTIPLE INSTRUMENTS. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $49,990 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Jan 24, 2018 | Jan 20, 2018 | Jul 19, 2019 | ||
| SCIENCE GOALS AND OBJECTIVES THIS PROPOSED WORK WILL CREATE A SPECIFIC DATA SET FOR STUDYING DEEP MERIDIONAL FLOW PROFILE FROM 30 MM BELOW THE SOLAR SURFACE UP TO TACHOCLINE REGION AND WILL USE HMI/SDO DATA. AN IMPORTANT GOAL OF SOLAR PHYSICS IS THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE MECHANISMS OF SOLAR ACTIVITY, AS A PROBLEM IN ITS OWN RIGHT AND FOR ITS IMPORTANCE IN DETERMINING SPACE WEATHER. SOME CLUES TO THE PUZZLE SHOULD ARISE FROM STUDYING THE PHYSICAL PROCESSES IN THE DEEP CONVECTION ZONE SINCE IT IS THE MOTIONS IN THIS REGION THAT ARE THOUGHT TO REGENERATE THE POLOIDAL MAGNETIC FIELD FROM THE TOROIDAL MAGNETIC FIELD, AN ESSENTIAL PROCESS THAT ALLOWS THE SOLAR CYCLE TO CONTINUE. WHILE SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS HAS BEEN ACHIEVED IN UNDERSTANDING SOLAR CONVECTION-ZONE DYNAMICS AND ITS RELATION TO SURFACE ACTIVITY, SOME IMPORTANT PROBLEMS STILL REMAIN, SUCH AS THE NATURE OF THE DEEP MERIDIONAL FLOW THAT DRIVES THE DYNAMO. RECENT MEASUREMENTS OF EQUATORWARD COMPONENT OF THE MERIDIONAL FLOW FROM HMI AND GONG DATA SHOW SIMILAR PATTERN OF GENERAL PICTURE OF THE FLOW PROFILE. HOWEVER, THERE ARE SOME CONTROVERSIAL RESULTS AS WELL. FOR EXAMPLE MULTI-CELL STRUCTURE OF THE MERIDIONAL FLOW (IN DEPTH AND LATITUDE) IS DIFFERENT IN TWO INDEPENDENT MEASUREMENTS. MOST OF THE DISAGREEMENTS MAY BE DUE TO THE FACT THAT THESE MEASUREMENTS ARE NOT FROM STANDARD HMI OR GONG DATA PRODUCT. THEY ARE DERIVED USING DIFFERENT PROCESSING AND MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES. STANDARD PIPELINES DOES NOT PRODUCE SUCH TYPE OF DATA. MOREOVER, DEEP FLOW MEASUREMENTS ARE VERY SENSITIVE TO ANALYSIS METHODS AND PARAMETERS OF DATA PROCESSING E.G. PROJECTION, FILTERING ETC. WE PROPOSE TO CREATE VERY UNIQUE AND SPECIALIZED DATA PRODUCTS WHICH WILL CATER TO ALL INTERESTED HELIOPHYSICS COMMUNITY WITH A UNIFORMLY PROCESSED AND WELL ACCEPTED PROCESSING PARAMETERS SINCE STANDARD HMI PIPELINE DOES NOT PRODUCE SUCH TYPE OF DATA. FURTHER, PROCESSING OF SUCH DATA SETS IS COMPUTATIONALLY INTENSIVE. THUS, AVAILABILITY OF THESE DATA WILL FACILITATE MANY RESEARCH GROUPS TO WORK ON UNIFORM DATA EVEN IF THEY DO NOT HAVE THE PROCESSING CAPABILITIES TO PRODUCE SUCH DATA. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $50,115 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Jan 24, 2018 | Jan 12, 2018 | Jan 11, 2019 | ||
| GOALS&OBJECTIVES: WE SEEK TO UNDERSTAND WHETHER THE 'NANOFLARE HYPOTHESIS CAN EXPLAIN CORONAL HEATING, BY ANALYZING NEW, HIGH QUALITY EMPIRICAL DATA AND BY UNDERSTANDING THOSE DATA USING BOTH THEORY AND FORWARD MODELING. DESPITE SEVERAL IMPORTANT STUDIES OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES, IT IS NOT YET CLEAR WHETHER THE SMALLEST SCALE EVENTS DELIVER MORE, OR LESS, POWER TO THE CORONA THAN DO SOLAR FLARES THEMSELVES. THE NUMBER VS. ENERGY DISTRIBUTION OF ENERGETIC EVENTS IS A POWER LAW WHOSE EXPONENT IS TANTALIZINGLY CLOSE TO THE CRITICAL VALUE OF -2. EXACTLY WHERE THE EXPONENT LANDS HAS NOT BEEN CONCLUSIVELY DETERMINED, HOWEVER, AND THE POWER LAW MAY CHANGE AT THE SMALLEST SCALES (HERE NOISE EFFECTS DOMINATE EXISTING STUDIES, SO THEORETICAL ESTIMATES HAVE EXTRAPOLATED FROM LARGER SCALES). WE WILL FOCUS ON THE DISTRIBUTIONS OF THE SMALLEST IMPULSIVE EVENTS VISIBLE WITH SDO/AIA, WHICH OFFERS GREATLY IMPROVED SENSITIVITY, CADENCE, TEMPERATURE COVERAGE, AND FOV COMPARED TO PRIOR WORK USING TRACE. THE PROPERTIES OF EACH DETECTED EVENT WILL BE CAREFULLY CATALOGUED, USING DIFFERENTIAL EMISSION MEASURE (DEM) ANALYSIS TO INFER TEMPERATURES AND ENERGETICS. IN TANDEM WITH THE AIA DATA ANALYSIS, WE WILL CARRY OUT 'SYNTHETIC DATA' ANALYSIS EXERCISES AND FORWARD FITTING USING THE EBTEL AND/OR HYDRAD NUMERICAL MODELS, TO IDENTIFY AND CORRECT FOR SYSTEMATIC CROSS-SCALE BIAS IN THE DETECTION ALGORITHMS. OUR MODELING COMPONENT IS A CRITICAL INNOVATION BECAUSE IT ALLOWS US TO UNDERSTAND AND CORRECT SYSTEMATIC SAMPLING EFFECTS THAT COULD SKEW THE SMALL-SCALE TAIL OF THE DISTRIBUTION. THESE EFFECTS INCLUDE BOTH SAMPLING BIAS AND PHYSICAL EFFECTS THAT AFFECT DETECTABILITY OF INDIVIDUAL EVENTS. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $353,295 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Sep 13, 2017 | Aug 29, 2017 | Nov 20, 2020 | ||
| WE PROPOSE TO BUILD A FRAMEWORK FOR THEP CORONAL AUTOMATED ANALYSIS OF SHOCKS AND WAVES (CASHEW). THE PROPOSED WORK ADDRESSES THE NASA HELIOPHYSICS GUEST INVESTIGATORS SUB-ELEMENT B.4.1: OPEN DATA-DEVELOPMENT ELEMENT (ODDE) IN SUPPORT OF THE CURRENT HELIOPHYSICS SYSTEM OBSERVATORY OPERATING MISSIONS . IT WILL COMBINE ANALYSIS OF NASA HELIOPHYSICS SYSTEM OBSERVATORY DATA PRODUCTS, AND RELEVANT DATA-DRIVEN MODELS INTO AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM FOR THE CHARACTERIZATION OF CORONAL WAVES AND SHOCKS AND THE EVALUATION OF THEIR CAPABILITY TO ACCELERATE SEPS. CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS (CMES) ARE ONE OF THE MAIN PHENOMENA THAT MODIFY SPACE WEATHER IN THE HELIOSPHERE. AMONG OTHER EFFECTS, DURING THEIR HELIOSPHERIC PROPAGATION THEY ROUTINELY DRIVE COLLISIONLESS SHOCKS, WHICH IN TURN MAY PRODUCE SIGNIFICANT FLUXES OF SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLES (SEPS). RECENT STUDIES HAVE USED EXTREME UV (EUV) OBSERVATIONS TO SHOW THE CONNECTION OF CORONAL EUV WAVES TO METRIC RADIO TYPE II BURSTS IN THE CORONAL PHASES OF CMES. THIS SIGNIFIES THAT CME-DRIVEN SHOCKS CAN EXIST LOW IN THE CORONA, AND MAY ALREADY ACCELERATE SEPS AT THEIR VERY INITIAL STAGES. CHARACTERIZING CORONAL SHOCKS HAS ONLY BECOME POSSIBLE THROUGH REMOTE MEASUREMENTS FROM INSTRUMENTS ON THE SOHO, STEREO, AND SDO SPACECRAFT. EUV IMAGING WITH THE ATMOSPHERIC IMAGING ASSEMBLY(AIA) INSTRUMENT ON SDO HAS PROVED PARTICULARLY USEFUL FOR DETECTING LARGE-SCALE SHORT-LIVED CORONAL BRIGHT FRONTS, WHICH, COMBINED WITH RADIO OBSERVATIONS, HOLDS GREAT PROMISE FOR EARLY CME-DRIVEN SHOCK CHARACTERIZATION CAPABILITY. THIS CHARACTERIZATION CAN FURTHER BE AUTOMATED, AND RELATED TO MODELS OF PARTICLE ACCELERATION TO PRODUCE ESTIMATES OF PARTICLE FLUXES EARLY IN EVENTS. THE CASHEW FRAMEWORK WILL BE EXTENSIVELY TESTED AND VALIDATED ON A REPRESENTATIVE LIST OF CORONAL BRIGHT FRONT EVENTS. SOME OF THE SPECIFIC SCIENTIFIC QUESTIONS THAT CAN BE ADDRESSED THROUGH ANALYSES OF THE PROPOSED DATA PRODUCTS ARE 1) TO WHAT ENERGIES CAN CORONAL SHOCKS ACCELERATE SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLES? 2) HOW DOES CORONAL SHOCK ACCELERATION EFFICIENCY VARY WITH TIME AND LOCATION? 3) WHAT REMOTE OBSERVABLES ARE RELEVANT FOR DETERMINATION OF SHOCK ACCELERATION EFFICIENCY? THE PRODUCTS OF THE PROPOSED WORK WILL ENABLE AND FACILITATE FUTURE STUDIES OF CORONAL SHOCK WAVE PROPERTIES, AS WELL AS THEIR INFLUENCE ON SEP PRODUCTION AND HELIOSPHERIC CONNECTIVITY. THE CASHEW FRAMEWORK AND ITS RESULTS WILL BE MADE FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE FOR RESEARCHERS TO USE VIA THE NASA SOLAR DATA ANALYSIS CENTER. THIS PROPOSAL IS RELEVANT TO THE NRC S CURRENT DECADAL SURVEY OF SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS AND ITS KEY SCIENCE GOAL 1. DETERMINE THE ORIGINS OF THE SUN'S ACTIVITY AND PREDICT THE VARIATIONS IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT . IT WILL ENABLE RESEARCH RELEVANT TO NASA'S STRATEGIC GOAL TO UNDERSTAND THE SUN AND ITS INTERACTIONS WITH THE EARTH AND THE SOLAR SYSTEM , AND TO THE FOLLOWING NASA HELIOPHYSICS SCIENCE OBJECTIVES: OPEN THE FRONTIER TO SPACE ENVIRONMENTAL PREDICTION: UNDERSTAND THE FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICAL PROCESSES OF THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE SUN TO EARTH , AND SAFEGUARD THE JOURNEY OF EXPLORATION: MAXIMIZE THE SAFETY AND PRODUCTIVITY OF HUMAN AND ROBOTIC EXPLORERS BY DEVELOPING THE CAPABILITY TO PREDICT THE EXTREME AND DYNAMIC CONDITIONS IN SPACE. | ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY, INC. | $74,070 | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION | — | — | AR21 | Aug 11, 2017 | Aug 11, 2017 | Aug 10, 2021 |