The influence of nonlinear material properties and resistance to bending on the development of internal structures

A reexamination of Biot's internal instability analysis, including the effects of bending resistance and nonlinear material properties, shows that internal buckling and oblique localized shearing into bands are the two end-member processes associated with internal instability. The first is a consequence of a high anisotropy which is an intrinsic property of the original unstressed layering or foliation. The second is a consequence of a highly anisotropic material response to perturbations which is induced during the initial uniform compression if material properties are nonlinear. The incremental anisotropy generating the instability is associated with planes of least resistance to shearing in directions parallel to the initial compression in the first case and at 45° to the initial compression in the second case.     

The effects of stock size and environmental variability on Cape hake recruitment in Namibia: an unsolved puzzle (a comment on Kainge et al. 2013)

Measuring and forecasting recruitment are central to the understanding and management of fish stocks. Kainge et al. (2013) studied the effect of spawning stock size and environmental fluctuations on the recruitment levels of the Cape hake Merluccius capensis in Namibia. However, their study contains some flaws that undermine the conclusion that Cape hake recruitment is under the influence of upwelling in summer. Until those flaws are properly addressed, this conclusion, in our view, should be treated with caution.     

The DynaMICCS perspective

The DynaMICCS mission is designed to probe and understand the dynamics of crucial regions of the Sun that determine solar variability, including the previously unexplored inner core, the radiative/convective zone interface layers, the photosphere/chromosphere layers and the low corona. The mission delivers data and knowledge that no other known mission provides for understanding space weather and space climate and for advancing stellar physics (internal dynamics) and fundamental physics (neutrino properties, atomic physics, gravitational moments...). The science objectives are achieved using Doppler and magnetic measurements of the solar surface, helioseismic and coronographic measurements, solar irradiance at different wavelengths and in-situ measurements of plasma/energetic particles/magnetic fields. The DynaMICCS payload uses an original concept studied by Thalès Alenia Space in the framework of the CNES call for formation flying missions: an external occultation of the solar light is obtained by putting an occulter spacecraft 150 m (or more) in front of a second spacecraft. The occulter spacecraft, a LEO platform of the mini sat class, e.g. PROTEUS, type carries the helioseismic and irradiance instruments and the formation flying technologies. The latter spacecraft of the same type carries a visible and infrared coronagraph for a unique observation of the solar corona and instrumentation for the study of the solar wind and imagers. This mission must guarantee long (one 11-year solar cycle) and continuous observations (duty cycle > 94%) of signals that can be very weak (the gravity mode detection supposes the measurement of velocity smaller than 1 mm/s). This assumes no interruption in observation and very stable thermal conditions. The preferred orbit therefore is the L1 orbit, which fits these requirements very well and is also an attractive environment for the spacecraft due to its low radiation and low perturbation (solar pressure) environment. This mission is secured by instrumental R and D activities during the present and coming years. Some prototypes of different instruments are already built (GOLFNG, SDM) and the performances will be checked before launch on the ground or in space through planned missions of CNES and PROBA ESA missions (PICARD, LYRA, maybe ASPIICS).     

The SWAP EUV Imaging Telescope Part I: Instrument Overview and Pre-Flight Testing

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope onboard ESA’s Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and provides images of the low solar corona over a 54×54 arcmin field-of-view with 3.2 arcsec pixels and an imaging cadence of about two minutes. SWAP is designed to monitor all space-weather-relevant events and features in the low solar corona. Given the limited resources of the PROBA2 microsatellite, the SWAP telescope is designed with various innovative technologies, including an off-axis optical design and a CMOS–APS detector. This article provides reference documentation for users of the SWAP image data.     

The Heliospheric Imagers Onboard the STEREO Mission

Mounted on the sides of two widely separated spacecraft, the two Heliospheric Imager (HI) instruments onboard NASA’s STEREO mission view, for the first time, the space between the Sun and Earth. These instruments are wide-angle visible-light imagers that incorporate sufficient baffling to eliminate scattered light to the extent that the passage of solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) through the heliosphere can be detected. Each HI instrument comprises two cameras, HI-1 and HI-2, which have 20° and 70° fields of view and are off-pointed from the Sun direction by 14.0° and 53.7°, respectively, with their optical axes aligned in the ecliptic plane. This arrangement provides coverage over solar elongation angles from 4.0° to 88.7° at the viewpoints of the two spacecraft, thereby allowing the observation of Earth-directed CMEs along the Sun?–?Earth line to the vicinity of the Earth and beyond. Given the two separated platforms, this also presents the first opportunity to view the structure and evolution of CMEs in three dimensions. The STEREO spacecraft were launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Base in late October 2006, and the HI instruments have been performing scientific observations since early 2007. The design, development, manufacture, and calibration of these unique instruments are reviewed in this paper. Mission operations, including the initial commissioning phase and the science operations phase, are described. Data processing and analysis procedures are briefly discussed, and ground-test results and in-orbit observations are used to demonstrate that the performance of the instruments meets the original scientific requirements.     

Solar-Blind Diamond Detectors for Lyra, the Solar VUV Radiometer on Board Proba II

Fabrication, packaging and experimental results on the calibration of metal-semiconductor-metal (MSM) photodetectors made on diamond are reported. LYRA (Lyman- RAdiometer onboard PROBA-2) will use diamond detectors for the first time in space for a solar physics instrument. A set of measurement campaigns was designed to obtain the XUV-to-VIS responsivity of the devices and other characterizations. The measurements of responsivity in EUV and VUV spectral ranges (40–240 nm) have been carried out by the Physkalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany at the electron storage ring BESSY II. The longer wavelength range from 210 to 1127 nm was measured with monochromatic light by using a Xe-lamp at IMO-IMOMEC. The diamond detectors exhibit a photoresponse which lie in the 35–65 mA/W range at 200 nm (corresponding to an external quantum efficiency of 20–40%) and indicate a visible rejection ratio (200–500 nm) higher than four orders of magnitude.     

The optical depth sensor (ODS) for column dust opacity measurements and cloud detection on martian atmosphere

A lightweight and sophisticated optical depth sensor (ODS) able to measure alternatively scattered flux at zenith and the sum of the direct flux and the scattered flux in blue and red has been developed to work in martian environment. The principal goals of ODS are to perform measurements of the daily mean dust opacity and to retrieve the altitude and optical depth of high altitude clouds at twilight, crucial parameters in the understanding of martian meteorology. The retrieval procedure of dust opacity is based on the use of radiative transfer simulations reproducing observed changes in the solar flux during the day as a function of 4 free parameters: dust opacity in blue and red, and effective radius and effective width of dust size distribution. The detection of clouds is undertaken by looking at the time variation of the color index (CI), defined as the ratio between red and blue ODS channels, at twilight. The retrieval of altitude and optical depth of clouds is carried out using a radiative transfer model in spherical geometry to simulate the CI time variation at twilight. Here the different retrieval procedures to analyze ODS signals, as well as the results obtained in different sensitivity analysis are presented and discussed.     

First Imaging of Coronal Mass Ejections in the Heliosphere Viewed from Outside the Sun – Earth Line

We show for the first time images of solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) viewed using the Heliospheric Imager (HI) instrument aboard the NASA STEREO spacecraft. The HI instruments are wide-angle imaging systems designed to detect CMEs in the heliosphere, in particular, for the first time, observing the propagation of such events along the Sun – Earth line, that is, those directed towards Earth. At the time of writing the STEREO spacecraft are still close to the Earth and the full advantage of the HI dual-imaging has yet to be realised. However, even these early results show that despite severe technical challenges in their design and implementation, the HI instruments can successfully detect CMEs in the heliosphere, and this is an extremely important milestone for CME research. For the principal event being analysed here we demonstrate an ability to track a CME from the corona to over 40 degrees. The time – altitude history shows a constant speed of ascent over at least the first 50 solar radii and some evidence for deceleration at distances of over 20 degrees. Comparisons of associated coronagraph data and the HI images show that the basic structure of the CME remains clearly intact as it propagates from the corona into the heliosphere. Extracting the CME signal requires a consideration of the F-coronal intensity distribution, which can be identified from the HI data. Thus we present the preliminary results on this measured F-coronal intensity and compare these to the modelled F-corona of Koutchmy and Lamy (IAU Colloq. 85, 63, 1985). This analysis demonstrates that CME material some two orders of magnitude weaker than the F-corona can be detected; a specific example at 40 solar radii revealed CME intensities as low as 1.7×10⁻¹⁴ of the solar brightness. These observations herald a new era in CME research as we extend our capability for tracking, in particular, Earth-directed CMEs into the heliosphere.