NASA's MinXSS CubeSat brings new information to study of solar flares! (Watch video)

Photo credit: NASA.gov Video/YouTube

New Delhi: A new NASA CubeSat - a bread loaf-sized miniature satellite that provides a low-cost platform for missions – launched to space has begun observing a particular class of X-ray light that has rarely been studied.

As per NASA, the Miniature X-Ray Solar Spectrometer, or MinXSS, CubeSat began science operations on June 9, 2016, collecting data on soft X-rays.

NASA has released a video which was made using MinXSS data from a low-intensity solar flare that occurred on July 21, 2016, and imagery from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

“Each type of solar radiation conveys unique information about the physics underlying solar flares,” NASA said.

“This data reveals the temperature, density and abundance of solar flare material, all critical factors for determining how flares evolve and heat the sun’s atmosphere.”

This video shows how dynamic the solar atmosphere can become, and highlights that MinXSS has great sensitivity to observe even the weak flares.

MinXSS is a project of the University of Colorado Boulder, and the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.