From: baalke@zagami.jpl.nasa.gov   
      
   Bell Labs   
   Lucent Technologies   
      
   For more information, reporters may contact:   
      
   Saswato Das   
   Lucent Technologies   
   (908) 582 4824   
   Email:srdas@lucent.com   
      
   Gale Scott   
   New Jersey Institute of Technology   
   (973) 596 3438   
   Email:gscott@njit.edu   
      
   FOR RELEASE FRIDAY NOVEMBER 14, 2003   
      
   Scientists report first-ever 3-D observations of solar storms using Ulysses   
   spacecraft   
      
   New Jersey Institute of Technology/Bell Labs physicist Louis Lanzerotti   
   participates in international team that studied the unquiet sun when it was   
   most   
   active and found interesting phenomena   
      
   Newark, NJ -- The sun's surface is a violent and turbulent place, where a fiery   
   tempest always blows. Scientists are reporting in the journal Science today   
   that   
   they have finally succeeded in getting a good three-dimensional view of it.   
      
   "The sun is huffing and puffing and blowing off steam," said NJIT/Bell Labs   
   physicist Louis Lanzerotti, a member of an international team that used the   
   Ulysses spacecraft to make the first-ever 3-D study of our parent star during   
   solar maximum, the peak of the sun's 11-year activity cycle. "Ulysses gave us a   
   chance to observe the sun from unique vantage points to better understand solar   
   storms and their consequences."   
      
   Scientists have been trying to understand solar weather for years, in an effort   
   to better predict terrestrial consequences of solar storms. Solar storms   
   sometimes severely disrupt wireless telephone calls, satellite communications   
   and electric power grids on Earth.   
      
   Ulysses, launched in 1990 by the shuttle Discovery as a joint mission of NASA   
   and the European Space Agency, has an orbit that takes it over the solar poles,   
   giving scientists a chance to look at the sun from all angles.   
      
   "No other spacecraft can do that," said Lanzerotti, a solar physicist who   
   divides his time between Lucent Technologies' Bell Labs, which he joined in   
   1965   
   and where he is now a consultant, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology,   
   where he is a distinguished research professor at the Center for Solar   
   Terrestrial Research. "Many space missions have observed the sun near its   
   equator, but only Ulysses has traveled from the solar equator to above the   
   sun's   
   polar caps."   
      
   Ulysses began its first solar orbit in 1992 and completed it in 1998, a period   
   when solar activity was at a minimum. But during the second orbit, begun in   
   1998, the sun was at its most turbulent.   
      
   The scientists report that, during this period, huge explosions on the sun   
   hurled vast amounts of solar material into space. Called coronal mass   
   ejections,   
   since the sun's outermost layer -- the corona -- throws them off, these   
   swirling, boiling plumes travel out from the sun and are thought to be caused   
   by   
   the severest of solar gales.   
      
   "We just had a coronal mass ejection last week," Lanzerotti noted. "These are   
   some of the most violent phenomena associated with the sun. We were able to   
   look   
   at a few that happened around the recent solar maximum."   
      
   The team also got to observe the solar wind -- the stream of charged particles   
   that are emitted by the sun. The solar wind blows out a giant bubble called the   
   heliosphere within the interstellar medium, the dilute gas and dust that fills   
   the space between stars. The sun's influence extends far beyond the orbits of   
   the outer planets and the vast reservoir of periodic comets known as the Kuiper   
   Belt because the solar wind fills the heliosphere and exerts an outward   
   pressure   
   on the interstellar medium. (The boundary between the heliosphere and the   
   interstellar medium is the true edge of the solar system, a place where a lot   
   of   
   interesting physical phenomena take place. Last week, a separate team of   
   scientists, of which Lanzerotti is also a member, reported in the journal   
   Nature   
   that Voyager 1 has reached the edge of the solar system.)   
      
   Data from Ulysses show that the solar wind originates in holes in the sun's   
   corona, and the speed of the solar wind varies inversely with coronal   
   temperature.   
      
   "This was completely unexpected," said Lanzerotti. "Theorists had predicted the   
   opposite. Now all models of the sun and the solar wind will have to explain   
   this   
   observation."   
      
   Another surprising finding based on Ulysses' data is that the sun's magnetic   
   field originates from a magnet that seems to be perpendicular to the sun's axis   
   of rotation (instead of being parallel to it, as is the case with Earth).   
      
   "At solar maximum, the sun's polar cap magnetic fields reverse direction or   
   sign," said Edward Smith of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab at the California   
   Institute of Technology, who is the US project scientist for the Ulysses   
   mission. "Inward fields become outward and vice versa. Ulysses observations   
   show   
   that during this reversal, the Sun's magnetic poles are located near the solar   
   equator instead of in the polar caps."   
      
   The sun has a powerful magnetic field -- the needle of a compass placed on the   
   sun's surface would be deflected so strongly that it would require Herculean   
   strength to push it back. It is thought that solar activity is strongly related   
   to changes in the sun's magnetic field.   
      
   "We knew that the sun's magnetic field was dynamic and variable," said   
   Lanzerotti. "But this shows that we still have a lot of understanding to do. No   
   one really knows how it is formed and why it changes as it does."   
      
   Other members of the scientific team were: R.G. Marsden (European project   
   scientist) and M. Landgraf of the European Space Agency in the Netherlands; A.   
   Balogh of Imperial College, London; G. Gloeckler of the University of Maryland;   
   J. Geiss of the International Space Science Institute in Switzerland; D. J.   
   McComas of Southwest Research Institute; R.B. McKibben of the University of New   
   Hampshire; R. J. MacDowall of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; and N. Krupp   
   and   
   H. Krueger of the Max Planck Institutes in Germany.   
      
   The team's paper, "The Sun and Heliosphere at Solar Maximum," appears in the   
   November 14, 2003 issue of Science on page 1165.   
      
   About NJIT   
      
   NJIT, located in Newark, New Jersey, is a public, scientific and technological   
   research university enrolling more than 8,800 students. The university offers   
   bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees to students in 80 degree programs   
   throughout its six colleges: Newark College of Engineering, New Jersey School   
   of   
   Architecture, College of Science and Liberal Arts, School of Management, Albert   
   Dorman Honors College and College of Computing Sciences. The division of   
   continuing professional education offers adults eLearning, off campus degrees   
      
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