DSCOVR: ACE replacement

DSCOVR: Deep Space Climate Observatory

The Earth is constantly bombarded by intergalactic and interplanetary particle arriving from the sun and the insterstellar and galactic accelerated particles. ACE (Advance Composition Explorer) was implemented,with the job of measuring energetic particles from sun, heliosphere and galaxy, and it was soon replaced with DSCOVR whose purpose is the same.

DSCOVR NASA mission launched in 2015 with the primary object of measure Wind solar systems and Magnetic fields; the satellite uses sophisticated exteroceptive sensors such as DSCOVR has Solar Wind Plasma Sensor and Magnetometer (Plasmag), National Institute of Stardards and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR), Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), Electron Spectometer (ES), Pulse Height Analyser (PHA)

With new advancement of NASA in terms of accurately capturing the images in Deep space, NASA's EPIC camera was able to capture a unique view form this week's Solar Eclipse. Residents in the Western Pacific looked up in the morning to see the eclipse and DSCOVR looked from a million miles away the shadow of the moon crossing the Planet. NASA's Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) is a four megapizel CCD camera with telescope on the DSCOVR Satellite.

NOAA DSCOVR satellite is the Nation's first operational satellite in deep space, hovering over the earth and maintains a constant view despite of the rough spacial weather conditions. From its position about 1.6 million kilometers from Earth and towards the sun, DSCOVR acquires images using ten different spectral filters, from ultraviolet to near infrared. According Szabo, the Satellite collects images at all ten wavelengths about once every 108 minutes, just one image at full resolution. For this eclipse, the EPIC team collected full resolution images every 20 minutes on red, green, and blue channels. The total was 13 images spanning the entire four hours and twenty minutes that the elipse lasted.

Another incredible technology that is in addition to the EPIC camera is the National Institute of Standards and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR) which allows to measure the solar energy being radiated back into space from Earh. Soon NISTAR will be a to analyze data to quantify the outcoming and incoming radiation of the eclipse. Since its conveniently located in the middle of earth and sun one of its primary missions is to monitor solar wind for space weather forcast and to provide the colot views Earth has throughout the day. This technology is brought by the association and partnership between NASA, NOAA and the U.S Air Force and the effort of the engineers and science working in it.

REFERENCE 

An EPIC Eclipse : Image of the Day. (2015). Retrieved from http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=87675&eocn=home&eoci=iotd_image