| Name | Metis, UV and visible light coronagraph |
| Mission | Solar Orbiter |
| URL | http://soar.esac.esa.int/ |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-366ut35 |
| Abstract |
The Metis instrument aboard Solar Orbiter spacecraft is an externally occulted coronagraph developed under the support of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), by a scientific team of several institutes of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), several Universities and the National Research Council (CNR) with a contribution from MPS, Germany, and the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, and by a consortium of Italian industries composed by OHB, Milan and Thales Alenia Space, Turin. It is designed to take images of the solar corona in two channels: VL linearly polarized broadband (580-640 nm) and UV narrowband HI Ly-α (121.6 nm). The telescope FoV covers the full corona from 1.6 deg to 2.9 deg from disk center. VL and UV images will provide direct and indirect estimates of electrons and Hydrogen coronal densities and their fluctuations, solar wind velocities, high cadence imaging of the evolution of coronal transients, and the F-corona. Additional sources are: planets, comets, and stars. Metis webpage: http://metis.oato.inaf.it |
| Description | Metis scientific data products consists of calibrated and raw data images acquired by Metis coronagraph in two wavelength bands: Visible Light polarized brightness at 580-640 nm) and narrowband HI Ly-alpha at 121.6 nm. The primary data products are UV images, VL polarized brightness (pB) images, VL total brightness (tB) images, and VL fixed polarization (FP) images. Secondary data products are low latency UV and VL images, VL light curves and cosmic ray log matrices (http://metis.oato.inaf.it/data_products.html ). A synthetic Metis observations summary can be found here: http://metis.oato.inaf.it/obs_summary_new.html |
| Publication | Antonucci, E., et al., Metis: the Solar Orbiter visible light and ultraviolet coronal imager, A&A 642, A10 (2020), https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201935338 Fineschi, S., Naletto G., et al., Optical design of the multi-wavelength imaging coronagraph Metis for the solar orbiter mission, Exp. Astron., 49, 239 (2020) https://doi.org/10.1007/s10686-020-09662-z Link to Metis publications: http://metis.oato.inaf.it/publications.html |
| Temporal Coverage | 2020 - current |
| Mission Description | Solar Orbiter is a mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. It explores the Sun and the heliosphere from close up and out of the ecliptic plane. Launched on 10 February 2020, it aims to address the overarching science question: how does the Sun create and control the Heliosphere – and why does solar activity change with time? To answer it, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is cruising to a unique orbit around the Sun, eventually reaching a minimum perihelion of 0.28 AU, and performing measurements out of the ecliptic plane: reaching 18° heliographic latitude during its nominal mission phase, and above 30° during its extended mission phase. It carries six remote sensing instruments to observe the Sun and the solar corona, and four in-situ instruments to measure the solar wind, its thermal and energetic particles, and electromagnetic fields. Müller, D., O.C.St. Cyr, I. Zouganelis, et al., The Solar Orbiter mission: science overview, A&A., 642, A1, 2020; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202038467 Müller, D., Marsden, R.G., St. Cyr, O.C. et al., Solar Orbiter, Sol. Phys., 285, 25–70 (2013); https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-012-0085-7 |
| Creator Contact | Marco Romoli, Principal Investigator, Università di Firenze, Italy, marco.romoli@unifi.it |
| Publisher And Registrant | European Space Agency |
| Credit Guidelines | When publishing any works related to this experiment, please cite the DOI as https://doi.org/10.5270/esa-366ut35. |