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| Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project | |
|---|---|
| Name | Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project |
| Mission type | Solar and heliospheric observation |
| Operator | NASA |
| Manufacturer | Ball Aerospace |
| Launch date | 2018-02-11 |
| Launch site | Cape Canaveral Air Force Station |
| Spacecraft | Parker Solar Probe |
| Mission status | Active |
Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project is a solar ultraviolet imaging investigation flown aboard the Parker Solar Probe to map hydrogen Lyman-alpha emissions in the inner heliosphere. The project was developed through a partnership involving NASA, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, and subcontractors including Ball Aerospace and the Southwest Research Institute. The instrument supports missions overseen by the Solar Probe Plus program office, operating during perihelion passes coordinated with teams at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Goddard Space Flight Center.
The experiment was conceived as part of payloads selected for the Parker Solar Probe mission managed by NASA and built by Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics collaborators. The project maps resonantly scattered hydrogen Lyman-alpha at 121.6 nm to image neutral hydrogen distributions near the Sun and inside the inner heliosphere. Instrumentation heritage traces to instruments flown on missions such as SOHO, Ulysses, Voyager 1, Voyager 2, and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory sensors developed by teams at ESA partner institutions. The science team includes investigators from institutions like Princeton University, University of Colorado Boulder, Stanford University, University of Michigan, and University of California, Berkeley.
Primary goals include mapping the spatial distribution of neutral hydrogen, characterizing solar wind charge exchange processes, and constraining models of heliospheric Lyman-alpha scattering developed by researchers at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Naval Research Laboratory, and university groups. The project aims to test theories of solar wind acceleration associated with structures observed by Hinode, SDO, IRIS, and ground-based facilities such as Mauna Kea Observatories and National Solar Observatory. Additional objectives address interactions between the heliospheric current sheet, coronal mass ejections, and neutral populations influenced by phenomena studied in the Carrington Event literature and by modeling groups at NASA Ames Research Center.
The instrument is a compact ultraviolet imaging spectrograph developed with flight hardware experience from teams that built instruments for ACE, STEREO, TIMED, and the IMAGE mission. It employs coated mirrors, microchannel plate detectors similar to those used on Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet instruments, and baffling strategies informed by work on SOHO SUMER and CLASP sounding rocket payloads. Thermal and radiation considerations were coordinated with engineers from Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and the Applied Physics Laboratory, while mission operations planning involved the Parker Solar Probe navigation team and trajectory analysts from Caltech. The design supports repeated exposures during perihelion passes to build tomographic maps comparable to methodologies used by ACE SWEPAM and Ulysses SWOOPS teams.
The project delivers calibrated Lyman-alpha intensity maps, time-tagged photon lists, and context metadata integrated into the PDS archives and science data systems maintained by NASA Goddard. Data products include level 1 calibrated images, level 2 derived hydrogen density maps, and time-series suitable for comparison with in situ measurements from instruments onboard Parker Solar Probe such as SWEAP and FIELDS. Data releases have been coordinated with the Heliophysics Data Portal, the Virtual Solar Observatory, and community tools developed at University of Colorado and Stanford. Observing campaigns are scheduled to overlap with instruments on SDO, SOHO, and Hinode as well as with ground campaigns at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory.
Analyses have provided the highest-resolution inner-heliospheric Lyman-alpha maps since data from SOHO and Ulysses, revealing fine-scale neutral hydrogen features associated with streamer belts and plume-like structures previously inferred from coronagraph images from LASCO and modeling from Cranfield University and CfA teams. The project constrained the magnitude and variability of interplanetary hydrogen density during perihelion, informing charge-exchange rate estimates used by groups at Los Alamos National Laboratory and Johns Hopkins APL. Correlations between transient brightenings in Lyman-alpha and coronal mass ejections observed by STEREO and SOHO provided new constraints on neutral atom propagation and on models developed by the Community Coordinated Modeling Center. Comparative studies with in situ particle observations from Wind and ACE refined understanding of neutral-plasma coupling near the Sun.
Operations are a multi-institutional effort involving NASA, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Ball Aerospace, University of Colorado Boulder, and international partners previously engaged in heliophysics missions with teams from ESA, CNES, and JAXA. Science planning leverages community consortia including the Heliophysics Science Division and coordination with archives such as the Planetary Data System and the Virtual Solar Observatory. Regular workshops and data-analysis meetings have been held at venues including AAS meetings, the AGU Fall Meeting, and symposia organized by the International Astronomical Union.
The project has established new benchmarks for ultraviolet remote sensing of the inner heliosphere, complementing coronagraphic and in situ datasets from missions like Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, and SOHO. Its datasets support improved heliospheric models used by researchers at University of Michigan, Princeton University, and Stanford University and feed into predictive frameworks developed at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center and operational centers within NOAA. The instrument’s heritage informs designs for future missions proposed to NASA and international agencies, and its results are cited in studies presented at meetings such as the AGU and published by teams from institutions including Johns Hopkins University, University of Colorado, and NASA Goddard.
Category:Solar space observatories