The geographical span of the 2024 april 4 total solar eclipse offers an excellent scientific opportunity for exploiting ground-based and airborne platforms for observing the corona. Decades of…

This is a $238,922 grant award to the University of Hawaii (UH) from the Shared Services Center, a civilian federal agency, for a research project to observe the 2024 total solar eclipse. The goal is to use NASA's WB-57F high-altitude research aircraft to acquire superior quality spectral data and imaging observations of the solar corona over the 270-1100 nanometer wavelength range. This will yield insights into coronal plasma composition, temperatures, and coronal mass ejections. The award has no set-aside designation, reflecting UH's status as a large educational institution. UH has extensive expertise in astronomy, earth and environmental sciences, and has received numerous federal research grants and contracts, including a major indefinite delivery contract from NASA to manage the Infrared Telescope Facility.

The geographical span of the 2024 april 4 total solar eclipse offers an excellent scientific opportunity for exploiting ground-based and airborne platforms for observing the corona. Decades of broadband multi-wavelength total solar eclipse observations of forbidden line emission in the visible and near IR (VIS-NIR) have yielded key coronal plasma parameters over heliocentric distances from 1 to up to 3 - 5 solar radii. The goal of this proposal is to enhance the unsurpassed diagnostic capabilities of wide field imaging spectrometers and narrow band imaging from eclipses by operating onboard NASA s WB-57F high altitude research aircraft. Flying at 50000 feet enables observations under clear skies through reduced airmass, compared to the ground, and access to the lower spectral wavelength range down to the UV-b limit (270 NM) of existing ground-based VIS-NIR eclipse observations. The scientific objectives are: (1) to acquire superior quality spectral data over the 270 -1100 NM wavelength range which spans emission lines from different neutrals and ionized states of elements characteristic of electron temperatures of 10,000 k to 2 MK (2) to complement spectral data with imaging observations in white light and two selected spectral lines of FE XI 789.2 NM and FE XIV 530.3 NM and (3) to extend the approximate 4.5 mins of totality by about 2.5 mins. These data will yield electronic and ionic temperatures, new insights into the chemical composition of the ionized coronal plasma, and coronal mass ejections (cmes) with inclusions of chromospheric material from embedded ejected prominence material.