Downpours to end Australia bushfires within days
open and close in a carefully orchestrated dance, while other instruments will work behind the shadow of the shield.
Just like Earth, the Sun’s poles are extreme regions quite different from the rest of the body. It is covered in coronal holes, cooler stretches where fastgushing solar wind originates.
Scientists believe this region could be key to understanding what drives its magnetic activity.
Every 11 years, the Sun’s poles flip: north becoming south and vice versa. Just before this event, solar activity increases, sending powerful bursts of solar material into space.
Solar Orbiter will observe the surface as it explodes and record measurements as the material goes by the spacecraft.
The only spacecraft to previously fly over the Sun’s poles was another joint ESA/Nasa venture, the Ulysses, launched in 1990. But it got no closer to the Sun than the Earth is.
“You can’t really get much closer than Solar Orbiter is going and still look at the Sun,” ESA’s Muller said.
Solar Orbiter will use three gravity assists to draw its orbit closer to the Sun: two past Venus in December 2020 and August 2021, and one past Earth in November 2021, leading up to its first close pass by the Sun in 2022.
It will work in concert with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018 and will fly much closer to the Sun, passing through the star’s inner atmosphere to see how energy flows through its corona. — AFP
SYDNEY: Australia’s monthslong bushfires crisis will likely be over within days, officials said yesterday as heavy rainfall extinguished several massive blazes and was forecast to douse dozens more as downpours swept south.
Days of torrential rains have caused flash flooding in New South Wales and Queensland, dampening once-raging fires that volunteers had battled in vain for months.
Sydney experienced its wettest period in 20 years amid several days of heavy rainfall that led to chaotic scenes across the city.
The Bureau of Meteorology said 391.6mm of rain fell in Sydney over the past four days – the highest total in such a period since 414.2mm were recorded in February 1990.
Several major bushfires have been extinguished by the deluge, including a “mega-blaze” that burned through 500,000 hectares north of Sydney and a similarsized fire to the city’s south, bringing relief to residents and firefighters.
New South Wales Rural Fire Service spokesman James Morris said about 30 fires were still burning Monday, but it was expected they would soon be extinguished as the rain moves south in the coming days.
“By the end of the week it’s likely they will be out,” he told AFP.
Drought-stricken areas across the country’s east also received welcome downpours but more sustained and widespread rainfall will be needed to offset a years-long dry spell. — AFP