Hasta La Gadget!

Yesterday I blogged about next Tuesday’s launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which I’ll be attending as a Twitter correspondent, and the spate of educational events and tweetups around the world that will accompany the launch. So why is this mission important enough to garner all this attention, and for NASA to deem it the crown jewel of its solar science space fleet?

THe SDO will image the Sun at a far greater resolution than previous missions, and take images and measurements at much shorter intervals. This will let scientists look at short-term changes in the Sun’s brightness, appearance, and magnetic field in unprecedented detail, and should allow them to better understand the processes that drive solar activity and produce the “space weather” that can, upon reaching our world, cause geomagnetic storms that endanger astronauts and satellites, disrupt radio communications, and cause power surges or blackouts.