Nasa’s rocket to view Sun with X- ray vision

Washington, Sept. 5: Nasa is set to launch a sounding rocket that will take short journey to the Earth's atmosphere to catch a glimpse of the Sun with X- ray vision.

The Focusing Optics Xray Solar Imager ( FOXSI) mission is set to take its third flight from the New Mexico on September 7.

FOXSI is a sounding rocket mission. Derived from the nautical term “to sound,” meaning to measure, sounding rockets make brief 15- minute journeys above Earth's atmosphere for a peek at space before falling back to the ground.

Smaller, cheaper and faster to develop than large- scale satellite missions, sounding rockets offer a way for scientists to test their latest ideas and instruments

Without special instrumentation, the Sun looks calm and inert. However, beneath that placid facade are countless miniature explosions called nanoflares.

These small but intense eruptions are born when magnetic field lines in the Sun's atmosphere tangle up and stretch until they break like a rubber band.

The energy they release accelerates particles to near lightspeed and according to some scientists, heats the solar atmosphere to its searing million-degree Fahrenheit temperature.

FOXSI will travel above the shield of Earth's atmosphere, to stare at the Sun and search for nanoflares using its X- ray vision.