Feb 5 1999
From The Space Library
An international team of scientists published findings based on research using data from NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. The team had sought to locate the origin of solar wind, which interacts with Earth's magnetic field, creating auroral displays like the Northern Lights, as well as disrupting satellites and communications equipment. The SOHO team believed that the solar wind originated from honeycomb-shaped areas called convection cells, located beneath the coronal holes. Using data from the spectrometer, the scientists had measured for the first time the structure and motion of gases inside the coronal holes. The team reported that, in some places above coronal holes, magnetic field lines do not loop back to the Sun's surface, but rather, the magnetic lines shoot upward without returning to the Sun, thereby originating the solar wind.
The Russian Space Agency's "space mirror" failed to unfurl properly at the Mir space station, and Russia officially terminated the experiment. Crew attached the mirror to a cargo spacecraft filled with trash, sending it to burn up in Earth's atmosphere. Engineers had intended the 83-foot (25-meter) mirror to "work like an artificial [M]oon," acting as a prototype for larger mirrors that "could illuminate sun-starved northern cities through the long Arctic nights and spotlight disaster areas." The experiment's failure was a "big disappointment" for the Russian Space Agency, which had hoped to display its ability to conduct pioneering, ambitious projects despite a lack of funds.
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