The Tracking a Solar Storm challenge will run for twelve academic weeks from October 21, 2013 until January 31, 2014. Timing for the challenge is flexible, meaning that you can spread the challenge over a few months or compress the activity into a few weeks. The challenge will conclude on January 31, so please plan for your students to submit their space weather reports on or before this date.
IRIS Challenge Theme: Tracking a Solar Storm.
- The IRIS Challenge educator guide provides a framework and background
information for implementing the challenge.
- The optional student materials include 4 flipcharts and 4
data collection sheets from NASA's
Space Weather Action Center website that can be downloaded as
PDFs.
- Supporting solar images and informational videos are housed
on the Images and Videos pages of this website. These may be updated
during the Challenge.
- Research on the background of the IRIS Mission and other solar
studies and missions may be found on the Links
page.
- Profiles of persons key to this mission may be found on the
Bios page.
The IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) mission traces the
flow of energy and plasma through the chromosphere
and transition region into the corona using spectrometry
and imaging. IRIS is designed to provide significant
new information to increase our understanding of
energy transport into the corona and solar wind
and provide an archetype for all stellar atmospheres.
The unique state-of-the-art instrument (hi-res
spectrograph) capabilities, coupled with state-of-the-art
3-D modeling, will fill a large gap in our knowledge
of this dynamic region of the solar atmosphere.