• 천문학회보
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• 제44권1호
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• pp.51.1-51.1
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• 2019

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has been developing a coronagraph in collaboration with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), to install it on the International Space Station (ISS). The coronagraph will utilize spectral information to simultaneously measure electron density, temperature, and velocity. For this, we develop the coronagraph as a two-step process. First, we will perform a stratospheric balloon-borne experiment, so called BITSE, in 2019 with a new type of coronagraph. Second, the coronagraph will be installed and operate on the ISS (CODEX) in 2021 to address a number of questions (e.g., source and acceleration of solar wind, and coronal heating) that are both fundamental and practically important in the physics of the solar corona and of the heliosphere. In this presentation, we will introduce recent progresses.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.56.4-56.4
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• 2019

The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has been collaborating with the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, to install a coronagraph on the International Space Station (ISS). The coronagraph will utilize spectral information to simultaneously measure electron density, temperature, and velocity. As a first step, we developed a new coronagraph and launched it on a stratospheric balloon in 2019 (BITSE) from Fort Sumner, New Mexico in USA. As the next step, the coronagraph will be be further developed, installed and operate on the ISS (CODEX) in 2022 to address a number of important questions (e.g., source and acceleration of solar wind, and coronal heating) in the physics of the solar corona and the heliosphere. Recently, BITSE has been launched at Fort Sumner, New Mexico. In this presentation, we will introduce the BITSE mission and discuss recent progress.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.57.1-57.1
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• 2019

NASA and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) have been collaborated to develop the Space solar coronagraph instrument to detect the solar wind speed and corona temperature. As an intermediate stage, BITSE is the Balloon-Borne instrument to prove our proposed technical method which uses a polarized light in 4 different bandwidth wavelengths. In the presentation, the optical design based on the requirements, tests and alignment process for integrating the system are discussed.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.43.3-43.3
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• 2019

A coronal mass ejection (CME) mass is generally estimated by the total brightness measured from white-light coronagraph observations. The total brightness are determined from the integration of the Thomson scattering by free electrons of solar corona along the line of sight. It is difficult to estimate the masses of halo CMEs due to the projection effect. To solve this issue, we construct a synthetic halo CME with a power-law density distribution (ρ = ρ₀r^-3) based on a full ice-cream cone model using SOHO/LASCO C3 observations. Then we compute a conversion factor from observed CME mass to CME mass for each CME. The final CME mass is determined as their average value of several CME masses above 10 solar radii. Our preliminary analysis for six CMEs show that their CME mass are well determined within the mean absolute relative error in the range of 4 to 15 %.

• 천문학회보
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• 제46권2호
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• pp.47.1-47.1
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• 2021

Transverse magnetohydrodynamic waves often called Alfvénic (or kink) waves have been often theoretically put forward to solve the outstanding problems of the solar corona like coronal heating, solar wind acceleration, and chemical abundance enhancement. Here we report the first spectroscopic detection of Alfvénic waves around a sunspot at chromospheric heights. By analyzing the spectra of the Hα line and Ca II 854.2 nm line, we determined line-of-sight velocity and temperature as functions of position and time. As a result, we identified transverse magnetohydrodynamic waves pervading the superpenumbral fibrils. These waves are characterized by the periods of 2.5 to 4.5 minutes, and the propagation direction parallel to the fibrils, the supersonic propagation speeds of 45 to 145 km s-1, and the close association with umbral oscillations and running penumbral waves in sunspots. Our results support the notion that the chromosphere around sunspots abounds with Alfvénic waves excited by the mode conversion of the upward-propagating slow magnetoacoustic waves.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.42.2-42.2
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• 2019

Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) has been developing a next-generation coronagraph (NGC) in cooperation with NASA to measure the coronal electron density, temperature, and speed using four different filters around 400 nm. To demonstrate technology for the measurement through the 2017 total solar eclipse across the USA, KASI organized an expedition team to demonstrate the coronagraph measurement scheme and the instrumental technology. The observation site was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, USA. We built an eclipse observation system, so-called Diagnostic Coronal Experiment (DICE), which is composed of two identical telescopes to improve a signal to noise ratio. The observation was conducted with 4 wavelengths and 3 linear polarization directions according to the planned schedule in a limited total eclipse time of about 140 seconds.Polarization information of corona from the data was successfully obtained but we failed to get the coronal electron temperature and speed information due to a low signal-to-noise ratio of the optical system. In this study, we report the development of DICE and observation results. TSE observation and analysis by using our own developed instrument gave an important lesson that a coronagraph should be carefully designed to archive the scientific purpose. This experience through TSE observation will be very useful for a success of NASA-KASI joint missions called the Balloon-borne Investigation of the Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the Corona (BITSE) and COronal Diagnostic EXperiment (CODEX).

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.115.1-115.1
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• 2012

The Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) observes low ionization state coronal mass ejection plasma at ultraviolet wavelengths. The CME plasmas are often detected in O VI ($3{\times}10^5K$), C III ($8{\times}10^4K$), $Ly{\alpha}$, and $Ly{\beta}$. Earlier in situ observations by the Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS) on board Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) have shown mostly high ionization state plasmas in interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICME) events, which implies that most CME plasma is strongly heated during its expansion in solar corona. In this analysis, we investigate whether the low ionization state CME plasmas observed by UVCS occupy small enough fractions of the CME volume to be consistent with the small fraction of ICMEs measured by ACE that show low ionization plasma, or whether the CME must be further ionized after passing the UVCS slit. To do this, we determine the covering factors of low ionization state plasma for 10 CME events. We find that the low ionization state plasmas in CMEs observed by UVCS show small covering factors. This result shows that the high ionization state ICME plasmas observed by the ACE results from a small filling factor of cool plasma. We also find that the low ionization state plasma volumes in faster CMEs are smaller than in slower CMEs. Most slow CMEs in this analysis are associated with a prominence eruption, while the faster CMEs are associated with X-class flares.

• 천문학회보
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• 제37권2호
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• pp.111.1-111.1
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• 2012

We examine the relationship between a type II radio burst that started from an unusually high frequency of 425 MHz (fundamental component) and an associated white-light coronal mass ejection on 2011 February 13. The radio burst had a drift rate of 2.5 MHz/sec, indicating a relatively high shock speed. From SDO AIA observations we find that a loop-like erupting front sweeps across high density coronal loops near the start time of the burst (17:34:15 UT). We find fragmented structures of the type II burst, which indicates the signature of the shock propagating through the multiple loops. The deduced distance of shock formation (0.06 Rs) from flare center and speed of the shock (1100 km $s^{-1}$) using the measured density from AIA/SDO observations are comparable to the height (0.05 Rs, from the solar surface) and speed (700 km $s^{-1}$) of the CME leading edge observed by STEREO/EUVI. We conclude that the type II burst could be onset even in the low corona (41 Mm or 0.06 Rs, above the solar surface) if a fast CME shock passes through the high density loops.

• 천문학회보
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• 제44권2호
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• pp.42.3-42.3
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• 2019

We translate Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) ultraviolet (UV) multi-channel images into another UV single-channel image using a deep learning algorithm based on conditional generative adversarial networks (cGANs). The base input channel, which has the highest correlation coefficient (CC) between UV channels of AIA, is 193 Å. To complement this channel, we choose two channels, 1600 and 304 Å, which represent upper photosphere and chromosphere, respectively. Input channels for three models are single (193 Å), dual (193+1600 Å), and triple (193+1600+304 Å), respectively. Quantitative comparisons are made for test data sets. Main results from this study are as follows. First, the single model successfully produce other coronal channel images but less successful for chromospheric channel (304 Å) and much less successful for two photospheric channels (1600 and 1700 Å). Second, the dual model shows a noticeable improvement of the CC between the model outputs and Ground truths for 1700 Å. Third, the triple model can generate all other channel images with relatively high CCs larger than 0.89. Our results show a possibility that if three channels from photosphere, chromosphere, and corona are selected, other multi-channel images could be generated by deep learning. We expect that this investigation will be a complementary tool to choose a few UV channels for future solar small and/or deep space missions.

• 천문학회보
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• 제42권2호
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• pp.85.1-85.1
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• 2017

We develop a coronagraph to measure the coronal electron density, temperature, and speed by observing the linearly polarized brightness of solar corona with 4 different wavelengths. Through the total solar eclipse on 21 August 2017, we test an operating software of a prototype coronagraph working with two sub-systems of two motorized filter wheels and a CCD camera that are controlled by a portable embedded computer. A Core Flight System (CFS) is a reusable software framework and set of reusable software applications which take advantage of a rich heritage of successful space mission of NASA. We use the CFS software framework to develop the operating software that can control the two sub-systems asynchronously in an observation scenario and communicate with a remote computer about commands, housekeeping data through Ethernet. The software works successfully and obtains about 160 images of 12 filter sets (4 bandpass filters and 3 polarization angles) during the total phase of the total solar eclipse. For the future, we can improve the software reliability by testing the software with a sufficient number of test cases using a testing framework COSMOS. The software will be integrated into the coronagraph for balloon-borne experiments in 2019.