This three-year, $989,876 National Science Foundation project grant funds the development of an Airborne Coronal Emission Surveyor (ACES) by the Smithsonian Institution's Astrophysical Observatory. The grant is part of NSF's Geosciences program, which supports basic research in atmospheric, earth, and ocean sciences to expand understanding of the integrated Earth system. Through this award beginning September 2021, the Smithsonian will develop an airborne instrument to conduct coronal emission...
This $135,000 National Science Foundation (NSF) Project Grant award under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) supports collaborative research to study the impact of solar eclipses on the ionosphere, a critical region of Earth's atmosphere that affects radio communications and navigation. The lead awardee, the Regents of the University of Colorado (a U.S. state government entity and institution of higher learning), will coordinate multi-instrument observations of ionospheric parameters during...
This $177,334 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under the Mathematical and Physical Sciences program (CFDA 47.049) will support imaging and spectral observations of the 2023 and 2024 total solar eclipses conducted by President and Trustees of Williams College. Key deliverables include high-resolution Fabry-Perot and Lyot/Halle filter observations of the solar corona, high-frequency (>1 Hz) power spectra measurements of coronal loops to study coronal heating...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $215,044 Project Grant under its Mathematical and Physical Sciences (CFDA 47.049) program to the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) to conduct the Citizen CATE (Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse) Next-Generation 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Experiment. This collaborative project between SwRI, the National Solar Observatory, and the National Center for Atmospheric Research aims to deploy 40 teams of citizen scientists along the path of the April...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) aims to improve understanding of the Sun's corona, the hot outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, by analyzing data from total solar eclipses. The $385,959 award to the Wentworth Institute of Technology will fund the analysis of imaging data from five total solar eclipses between 2015 and 2024 to study the coronal electron temperature, electron density, and magnetic field structure. This...
This Project Grant award, totaling $182,730, was made by the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) to Predictive Science Incorporated, a for-profit research and analysis company located in San Diego, California. The goal of this 3-year project, running from May 1, 2025 to April 30, 2028, is to improve understanding of the Sun's corona, the hot outer layer of the solar atmosphere, by analyzing data from five total solar eclipses spanning 2015 to 2024. The research...
This $215,044 Project Grant awarded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Astronomical Sciences supports the Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (Citizen CATE) experiment for the 2024 total solar eclipse. The grant will fund the deployment of 40 teams of citizen scientists along the path of totality to collect over 60 minutes of high-resolution polarimetric data on the solar corona. The research aims to better understand the physical processes that shape the heating,...
This Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences, totaling $357,172, supports research into small-scale ejections in the sun's photosphere through chromosphere and corona from September 1, 2021 through August 31, 2024. The award is being administered by the New Jersey Institute of Technology under the Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) to strengthen understanding of the integrated Earth system through basic atmospheric and ocean sciences...
This National Science Foundation (NSF) Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) Project Grant award of $335,621 to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) aims to advance understanding of energy transfer in solar flares. The key products and services to be delivered under this 3-year award include: Performing a statistical study on the thermal characteristics and dynamics of supra-arcade downflows (SADs) to understand their role in energy transfer in solar flare above-the-loop-top regions....
This $105,935 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports collaborative research on plasma turbulence and heating in the solar chromosphere. The primary awardee, the SETI Institute, will conduct theoretical analysis, computer simulations, and observations using data from NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to test the hypothesis that small-scale plasma processes cause heating in the...