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Sol (borrowed from the Latin word for sun) is a solar day on Mars; that is, a Mars-day. A sol is the apparent interval between two successive returns of the Sun to the same meridian (sundial time) as seen by an observer on Mars. It is one of several units for timekeeping on Mars. A sol is slightly longer than an Earth day.
The actual landing site was 0.900778° (19.8 km) east of that, corresponding to 3 minutes and 36 seconds later in local solar time. The date is kept using a mission clock sol count with the landing occurring on Sol 0, corresponding to MSD 47776 (mission time zone); the landing occurred around 16:35 LMST, which is MSD 47777 01:02 AMT.
The solar magnetic field extends well beyond the Sun itself. The electrically conducting solar wind plasma carries the Sun's magnetic field into space, forming what is called the interplanetary magnetic field. [86] In an approximation known as ideal magnetohydrodynamics, plasma particles only move along magnetic field lines. As a result, the ...
The heliospheric current sheet is a ripple in the heliosphere created by the rotating magnetic field of the Sun. It marks the boundary between heliospheric magnetic field regions of opposite polarity. Extending throughout the heliosphere, the heliospheric current sheet could be considered the largest structure in the Solar System and is said to ...
The Sun is a rotating sphere of plasma at the center of the Solar System. It lacks a solid or liquid surface, so the interface separating its interior and its exterior is usually defined as the boundary where plasma becomes opaque to visible light, the photosphere. Since plasma is gaseous in nature, this surface has no permanent demarcated ...
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. [1] [2] As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space—what they are, rather than where they are", [3] which is studied ...
Mission controllers operate the spacecraft remotely from the Mission Operations Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. The combined data rate is about 130 Mbit/s (150 Mbit/s with overhead, or 300 Msymbols/s with rate 1/2 convolutional encoding ), and the craft generates approximately 1.5 Terabytes of data per day (equivalent to downloading ...
Solar physics is the branch of astrophysics that specializes in the study of the Sun.It intersects with many disciplines of pure physics and astrophysics.. Because the Sun is uniquely situated for close-range observing (other stars cannot be resolved with anything like the spatial or temporal resolution that the Sun can), there is a split between the related discipline of observational ...