EGU2020-17703
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-17703
EGU General Assembly 2020
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

The Solaris Solar Polar Mission

Donald M. Hassler1, Jeff Newmark, Sarah Gibson, Louise Harra, Thierry Appourchaux, Frederic Auchere, David Berghmans, Robin Colaninno, Silvano Fineschi, Laurent Gizon, Sanjay Gosain, Todd Hoeksema, Christian Kintziger, John Linker, Pierre Rochus, Jesper Schou, Nicholeen Viall, Matt West, Tom Woods, Jean-Pierre Wuelser, and the Solaris Team*
Donald M. Hassler et al.
  • 1(hassler@boulder.swri.edu)
  • *A full list of authors appears at the end of the abstract

The solar poles are one of the last unexplored regions of the solar system. Although Ulysses flew over the poles in the 1990s, it did not have remote sensing instruments onboard to probe the Sun’s polar magnetic field or surface/sub-surface flows.

We will discuss Solaris, a proposed Solar Polar MIDEX mission to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun by addressing fundamental questions that can only be answered from a polar vantage point. Solaris uses a Jupiter gravity assist to escape the ecliptic plane and fly over both poles of the Sun to >75 deg. inclination, obtaining the first high-latitude, multi-month-long, continuous remote-sensing solar observations. Solaris will address key outstanding, breakthrough problems in solar physics and fill holes in our scientific understanding that will not be addressed by current missions.

With focused science and a simple, elegant mission design, Solaris will also provide enabling observations for space weather research (e.g. polar view of CMEs), and stimulate future research through new unanticipated discoveries.

Solaris Team:

Sarbani Basu, Aaron Birch, Doug Braun, Paul Charbonneau, Craig DeForest, Mausumi Dikpati, Yuhong Fan, Nick Featherstone, Jack Harvey, Brad Hindman, Russ Howard, Miho Janvier, Rudi Komm, Charlie Lindsey, Duncan Mackay, Andres Munoz-Jaramillo, Gordon Petrie, Stefaan Poedts, Sami Solanki, Barbara Thompson, Lisa Upton, Maria Weber, Joachim Woch, Junwei Zhao

How to cite: Hassler, D. M., Newmark, J., Gibson, S., Harra, L., Appourchaux, T., Auchere, F., Berghmans, D., Colaninno, R., Fineschi, S., Gizon, L., Gosain, S., Hoeksema, T., Kintziger, C., Linker, J., Rochus, P., Schou, J., Viall, N., West, M., Woods, T., and Wuelser, J.-P. and the Solaris Team: The Solaris Solar Polar Mission, EGU General Assembly 2020, Online, 4–8 May 2020, EGU2020-17703, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-17703, 2020.