Two Nasa aviators are scheduled to take off from Keflavik airport in Iceland on Wednesday in a research plane to observe a total solar eclipse. The aircraft will fly at 50,000ft (15,000 metres) along the eclipse path, aiming to extend the period of totality to nearly 3 minutes.
The mission involves a WB-57 aircraft equipped with four cameras in its nose cone. These cameras will take numerous pictures per second of the obscured sun in various wavelengths of light. The objective is to capture images of large plasma ribbons, known as prominences, and magnetic explosions called nanoflares.
Dr Amir Caspi, the principal investigator for the mission at Southwest Research Institute, stated that solar eclipses offer a unique opportunity for scientific observation. Nanoflares are believed to contribute to the sun's coronal heating mystery, where the outer atmosphere reaches over 1,000,000C while the surface is around 6,000C.
Observations from aircraft are considered advantageous over ground-based cameras due to the absence of clouds and atmospheric interference. This method allows for the collection of terabytes of data, which is crucial for understanding space weather and its potential impact on astronauts, satellites, and Earth's power grids and communications.