Surprise difference in neutrino and antineutrino mass lessening with new measurements from a Fermilab experiment

BATAVIA, Illinois -- The physics community got a jolt last year when results showed for the first time that neutrinos and their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos, might be the odd man out in the particle world and have different masses. This idea was something that went against most commonly accepted theories of how the subatomic world works.

A result released today (August 25) from the MINOS experiment at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory appears to quell concerns raised by a MINOS result in June 2010 and brings neutrino and antineutrino masses more closely in sync.

By bringing measurements of neutrinos and antineutrinos closer together, this new MINOS result allows physicists to lessen the potential ramifications of this specific neutrino imbalance. These ramifications include: a new way neutrinos interact with other particles, unseen interactions between neutrinos and matter in the earth and the need to rethink everything known about how the universe works at the tiniest levels.

“This more precise measurement shows us that these particles and their antimatter partners are very likely not as different as indicated earlier. Within our current range of vision it now seems more likely that the universe is behaving the way most people think it does," said Rob Plunkett, Fermilab scientist and co-spokesman of MINOS. “This new, additional information on antineutrino parameters helps put limits on new physics, which will continue to be searched for by future planned experiments.”

University College London Physics Professor and MINOS co-spokesperson Jenny Thomas presented this new result – the world’s best measurement of muon neutrino and antineutrino mass comparisons -- at the International Symposium on Lepton Photon Interactions at High Energies in Mumbai, India.

MINOS nearly doubled its data set since its June 2010 result from 100 antineutrino events to 197 events. While the new results are only about one standard deviation away from the previous results, the combination rules out concerns that the previous results could have been caused by detector or calculation errors. Instead, the combined results point to a statistical fluctuation that has lessened as more data is taken.

Physicists measured the differences between the squared masses between two types of neutrinos and compared them to the squared masses between two types of antineutrinos, a quantity called delta m squared. The 2010 result found, as a whole, that the range of mass difference in the neutrinos was about 40 percent less for antineutrinos, while the new result found a 16 percent difference.

“The previous results left a 2 percent chance that the neutrino and antineutrino masses were the same. This disagrees with what theories of how neutrinos operate predicted,” Thomas said. “So we have spent almost a year looking for some instrumental effect that could have caused the difference. It is comforting to know that statistics were the culprit.”

Because several neutrino experiments operating and planned across the globe rely on neutrino and antineutrino measurements being the same as part of their calculations, the new MINOS result hopefully removes a potential hurdle for them.

Fermilab's accelerator complex is capable of producing intense beams of either muon antineutrinos or muon neutrinos to send to the two MINOS detectors, one at Fermilab and one in Minnesota. This capability allows the experimenters to measure the mass difference parameters. The measurement also relies on the unique characteristics of the MINOS far detector, particularly its magnetic field, which allows the detector to separate the positively and negatively charged muons resulting from interactions of antineutrinos and neutrinos, respectively.

The antineutrinos’ extremely rare interactions with matter allow most of them to pass through the Earth unperturbed. A small number, however, interact in the MINOS detector, located 735 km away from Fermilab in Soudan, Minnesota. During their journey, which lasts 2.5 milliseconds, the particles oscillate in a process governed by a difference between their mass states.

Further analysis will be needed by the upcoming Fermilab neutrino experiments NOvA and MINOS+ to close the mass difference even more. Both experiments will use an upgraded accelerator beam generated at Fermilab that will emit more than double the number of neutrinos. This upgraded beam is expected to start operating in 2013.

The MINOS experiment involves more than 140 scientists, engineers, technical specialists and students from 30 institutions, including universities and national laboratories, in five countries: Brazil, Greece, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Funding comes from: the Department of Energy’s Office of Science and the National Science Foundation in the U.S., the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the U.K; the University of Minnesota in the U.S.; the University of Athens in Greece; and Brazil's Foundation for Research Support of the State of São Paulo (FAPESP) and National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

PANEPIROTIC FEDERATION OF AMERICA RAISES ALARM IN U.S. ON ALBANIAN CENSUS

The Panepirotic Federation of America is urging the United States to take measures to ensure that next month’s census in Albania, which will count ethnic and religious minorities for the first time in decades, is conducted without manipulation, harassment or intimidation.
Earlier this year, the Albanian parliament passed a law stating that a fine of $1,000 will be levied on those who declare an ethnicity in the census that was not previously registered on their family records. This law violates the human rights of Albanian citizens, and the Albanian Constitution and international law, which state that individuals have the right to declare any ethnic identity to which they feel they belong.
This law is a direct attack on the ethnic Greek minority and their basic human rights. During communist rule, members of minority groups in Albania often abstained from officially declaring an ethnic or religious identity out of fear of government reprisal. Now that the opportunity has arrived for the citizens of Albania to freely state their identity, the Albanian government is reverting to its old ways. Ethnic Greeks again have reason to fear openly and officially stating their identity.
As proud Greek-Americans, the Panepirotic Federation of America condemns these actions. The ethnic Greek minority in Albania has faced prejudice for many years. The Albanian government has closed Greek schools, prohibited the teaching of the Greek language, confiscated private land and homes of Greeks, and stolen property of the Orthodox Church. Now the Albanian government seeks to extinguish the Greek identity.
The Panepirotic Federation of America implores Washington to have its representatives in Albania issue statements assuring the country’s citizens that they may declare their ethnic and religious affiliations without fear of reprisals, including the payment of fines.

Demetrios Koutoulas, President - Panepirotic Federation
Father Kosmas Karavellas, Head chairman - Northern Epirus Issues Theodore Retzios, Co- Chair - Northern Epirus Issues

WORLD EPIROTES RAISE ALARM IN U.S., EUROPE ON ALBANIAN CENSUS

The World Council of Epirotes Abroad (WCEA) urges the United States and the European Union to take measures to insure that a census scheduled for next month in Albania, which will count ethnic and religious minorities for the first time in decades, is conducted without hindrance, manipulation, harassment or intimidation.

The intimidation has already begun. Earlier this year the Albanian parliament passed a law stating that a fine of $1,000, which is several months wages in Albania,
will be levied on those who declare an ethnic identity in the census that was not
registered on their family records. This law violates both the Albanian Constitution and
international law, which states that individuals have a right to declare any ethnic identity to which they feel they belong, and it is unlikely to be enforced for those reasons.

But it was passed nevertheless solely to intimidate minority members who were
afraid to declare an ethnic affiliation during the country's long Stalinist rule and are
afraid they will be punished if they do so now. Supporters of the law believe that many
Albanians are unaware of their constitutional rights and will not declare their ethnic
identity in the new census out of fear they will be fined if it does not coincide with old records.

The WCEA is calling Washington and Brussels to have their representatives in
Albania to issue statements that the country's citizens may declare their ethnic and
religious affiliations without fear of reprisals, including payment of fines called for by the new legislation.

"Albanian authorities and many legislators have consistently tried to downplay
the number of ethnic Greeks and other minorities in the country so they can deny them
their basic human rights," declared WCEA President Chris Dimou. "The new law aims at perpetuating that policy and Albanians must know that they need not fear it so they can declare their ethnic identities freely in the new census. Only the U.S. and he E.U.
have the prestige in Albania to convince its citizens that they can declare their ethnic
and religious identities without any fear of any reprisals afterward. And we urge them to
give them those assurances as soon as possible."

The WCEA also calls on all international organizations that will oversee the
census to take every precaution to insure that Albanians have ample and unhindered
opportunity to fill out and submit their census reports and to insure that their
declarations are fully and accurately counted. "It is clear from the law recently passed
to intimidate Albanians that powerful reactionary forces in the country are bent on
subverting an honest count of the nation's ethnic and religious minorities, and plan to use every means available to them to avoid it," said honorary president Nicholas Gage. "They must no be allowed to succeed because the Albanian people have been waiting
for 80 years for this chance."

Real Dragon Fossils on Display in China

Some fossils, named the “China dragon fossils”, were recently exhibited in the Xinwei Ancient Life Fossils Museum in Anshun, Guizhou.
When archeologists first stripped the clay off the fossil, they found the dragon had a pair of horns above its head and the shape of the dragon was very like the legendary animal often described in books and stories.
Dragons have often appeared in Chinese legends. The dragon with two horns on its head is regarded as a totem. The totem was first invented by Chinese ancestors and worshipped by the Chinese people. Therefore Chinese people are also called the “descendents of the dragon”.
For a long time, scientists thought that the dragon was a fictional animal existing only in stories.
The dragon fossil was found in Guanling County, Anshun City, in 1996, and has been kept in a good condition. It is measured 7.6 meters long. Its head is 76 centimeters long and the neck is 54 centimeters long. The body is 2.7 meters in length and 68 centimeters in width, and the tail is 3.7 meters long.
The dragon’s head is in a triangle shape. Its mouth is 43 centimeters long. The widest part of the head is 32 centimeters long. The horns project from the widest part of the head, and are symmetrical and 27 centimeters long. They are a little bit curved and tilted, which makes the fossil look very much like the legendary dragon.
The China dragon was a reptile animal living in the ocean in Triassic Period about 200 million years ago. It was an amphibian. It spent most of its time living in water, although sometimes it walked on land. It also laid eggs on land. The animal lived on fish and small reptile animals.
This is the first time that China found a dragon fossil with a pair of horns. Its discovery provides some evidence to prove that dragons might really have horns. The fossil provides important scientific information for people to trace the origin of the Chinese legendary dragon.

By Sun Tzu on 29-06-2007
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2007/06/29/real-dragon-fossils-on-display-in-china/

First Lady Michelle Obama Celebrates the National Design Awards with White House Ceremony and Luncheon

Photo: Alexander Tibbets
Secretary Clough, First Lady Michelle Obama and Director Bill Moggridge offer remarks during the 2010 National Design Awards luncheon at the White House, Wednesday, July 21.
September 6, 2011
The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum today announced First Lady Michelle Obama will celebrate the 2011 National Design Awards Tuesday, Sept. 13, with a White House ceremony for the winners and finalists of the awards. In support of the First Lady’s emphasis on education and outreach to the Washington, D.C. community, the award winners will participate in an education program for local high school students before the luncheon. First Lady Michelle Obama serves as the honorary patron for this year’s National Design Awards.

The annual National Design Awards celebrate design in various disciplines as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world. The awards are accompanied each year by a variety of public education programs, including special events, panel discussions and workshops.

“The First Lady is an influential champion of design and arts education, and we are honored to once again have her support as honorary patron of the National Design Awards,” said Museum Director Bill Moggridge.

Several of the National Design Award winners and finalists will take part in a Teen Design Fair in Washington Sept. 13, which serves to introduce high school students to careers in design. The students will meet one-on-one with leading designers in the fields of fashion, industrial design, architecture, multimedia and graphic design, including Matthew Carter, Jamie Drake, Tobias Frere-Jones, Kathryn Gustafson, Steven Heller and Jonathan Hoefler. A keynote address will be given by Tim Gunn, chief creative officer at Liz Claiborne Inc. and co-host of Lifetime’s Project Runway. The Teen Design Fair will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. in the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard at the Smithsonian’s Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, which houses the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum (Eighth and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.). Students can learn more about attending the program and register online at www.nationaldesignawards.org.

The awards recognize extraordinary contributions to design in 10 categories: Lifetime Achievement, Design Mind, Corporate and Institutional Achievement, Architecture Design, Communication Design, Fashion Design, Interaction Design, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture and Product Design. The award recipients also will be honored at a gala dinner Oct. 20 at Pier Sixty in New York.

The 2011 National Design Awards recipients are:

Lifetime Achievement: Matthew Carter
Design Mind: Steven Heller
Corporate and Institutional Achievement: Knoll Finalists: Design that Matters and OXO
Architecture Design: Architecture Research Office Finalists: Dan Rockhill and Weiss/Manfredi
Communication Design: Rick Valicenti Finalists: Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Project Projects
Fashion Design: J. Mendel Finalists: Prabal Gurung and Jason Wu
Interaction Design: Ben Fry Finalists: Chris Milk and Local Projects
Interior Design: Shelton, Mindel & Associates Finalists: Aidlin Darling Design and Clive Wilkinson Architects
Landscape Architecture: Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Finalists: Tom Leader and Margie Ruddick
Product Design: Continuum Finalists: Heath Ceramics and RKS
The 2011 jury was composed of a diverse group of designers and educators from around the nation, including Andrew Blauvelt, Walker Art Center; June Cohen, TED Media; Jamie Drake, Drake Design Associates; Terry Guen, Terry Guen Design Associates Inc.; David Kusuma, Tupperware Brands Corp.; Jennifer Morla, Morla Design; Lela Rose, Lela Rose; Billie Tsien, Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects; and Patrick Whitney, Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology.

The National Design Awards are made possible in part by Bloomberg. Media sponsorship for the National Design Awards is provided by Fast Company.
National Design Week is made possible in part by the generous sponsorship of Target.

National Design Week

National Design Week, Oct. 15–23, aims to promote a better understanding of the role that design plays in all aspects of daily life. In addition to hosting a Teen Design Fair and Winners’ Panel, the program will reach school teachers and their students nationally, in the classroom and online through Cooper-Hewitt’s Educator Resource Center (www.educatorresourcecenter.org). The site features more than 400 lesson plans aligned to national and state standards that demonstrate how the design process can enhance the teaching of all subjects and features discussion boards that provide a forum for educators to exchange ideas. The museum’s website also features the year-round “Design Across America” clickable map listing design-oriented events throughout the country.

About Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. The museum presents compelling perspectives on the impact of design on daily life through active educational programs, exhibitions and publications. Founded in 1897 by Amy, Eleanor and Sarah Hewitt—granddaughters of industrialist Peter Cooper—as part of the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the museum has been a branch of the Smithsonian since 1967.

Cooper-Hewitt’s main facility, housed in the Carnegie Mansion, will undergo renovation, beginning in fall 2011, as part of a $64 million capital campaign that includes enlarged and enhanced facilities for exhibitions, collections display, education programming and the National Design Library, and an increased endowment. During the renovation, Cooper-Hewitt’s usual schedule of exhibitions, education programs and events will be staged at various off-site locations, including “Design with the Other 90%: Cities,” on view at the United Nations Oct. 15 through Jan. 9, 2012.

CERN's LHCb experiment takes precision physics to a new level

Geneva, 26 August 2011. Results to be presented by CERN1’s LHCb experiment at the biennial Lepton-Photon conference in Mumbai, India on Saturday 27 August are becoming the most precise yet on particles called B mesons, which provide a way to investigate matter-antimatter asymmetry. The LHCb experiment studies this phenomenon by observing the way B mesons decay into other particles. The new results reinforce earlier measurements from LHCb presented at last month’s European Physical Society conference in Grenoble, France, showing that the B meson decays so far measured by the collaboration are in full agreement with predictions from the Standard Model of particle physics, the theory physicists use to describe the behaviour of fundamental particles.

“This result shows that we’re now able to measure the finest details of the B meson system,” said LHCb spokesperson Pierluigi Campana, “which puts us right where we need to be to start finding cracks in the Standard Model, and explaining matter-antimatter asymmetry.”

Matter and antimatter are thought to have existed in equal amounts at the beginning of the universe, but as the universe expanded and cooled, an asymmetry developed between them, leaving a universe that appears to be composed entirely of matter. Heavy quarks provide a good place to investigate this phenomenon because the heavier the quark, the more ways it can decay, and all of these decays are described by the Standard Model. The Standard Model predicts matter-antimatter asymmetry, but at a level which is too small to explain the observed asymmetry in the Universe. Deviations from the predictions would bring an indication of new physics. B-quarks are produced copiously at the LHC, which makes them the particle of choice for studying matter-antimatter asymmetry in the laboratory. Quarks are never produced alone, but always travel in company: they are accompanied by another quark giving rise to the family of particles called B mesons. It is these that LHCb studies.

Earlier in the year, experiments at Fermilab presented results that hinted at a divergence from the Standard Model. Since then, however, the LHCb experiment has surpassed the Fermilab experiments’ precision, and sees no such divergence.

“These results suggest that the devil is in the detail,” said Campana, “and we’ve reached the point where we’re getting right down into the details. It’s not the devil we expect to find there, though, but new hints of deviations from the Standard Model.”

LHCb has been able to reach this level of precision so early in the operational lifetime of the LHC thanks to the excellent performance of the LHC, and the way that LHCb scientists have worked with LHC engineers to optimize the amount of data collected by the experiment. Unlike the large general-purpose detectors, ATLAS and CMS, the LHCb detector has not been constructed to record data at the maximum rate the LHC can deliver. LHCb contains very sensitive elements close to the beam that can measure the point of decay of B mesons. Reconciling the need to protect these devices from possible beam damage with maximizing beam intensity is the challenge these engineers and scientists have overcome.

“Collaboration with the accelerator people has been fantastic,” said Campana, “It’s allowing us to collect data much faster than expected, and bringing us closer to being able to understand where the antimatter went.”

CERN announces the Collide@CERN artists' residency programme

The Ars Electronica centre. Image: Nicolas Ferrando, Lois Lammerhuber
Geneva, 2 September 2011. A new kind of collision will soon be taking place at CERN1’s Geneva laboratory. The Collide@CERN artists’ residency programme means that, as well as colliding particles, CERN will be bringing scientific and artistic creativity into contact. The programme was announced today at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria.

Collide@CERN is an important strand of CERN’s policy for engagement with the arts, Great Arts for Great Science, announced in August. Collide@CERN is an international competition that will run for a period of three years. Each year, artists working in different art forms will have the opportunity to take up a funded residency of up to three months. The programme is being made possible thanks to generous funding, to date from: Ars Electronica for the Digital Arts Prize (prize money); private individual donors (for the creative process grant/residency); and from the City and the Canton of Geneva for dance and performance (respectively for the prize money and creative process grant/residency). UNIQA Assurances SA Switzerland is the exclusive sponsor of all artists’ insurances for the Collide@CERN programme.

“Science underpins much of modern society and has an influence on the everyday lives of all of us,” said CERN Director General, Rolf Heuer. “As such, it’s important for scientific organizations like CERN to engage with society on many levels, and for us, Collide@CERN is an important element of that engagement.”

The first strand of Collide@CERN was announced in partnership with Ars Electronica, one of the world’s leading digital arts organizations and CERN’s official cultural partner. Artists are invited to apply for the Prix Electronica Collide@CERN prize for Digital Arts. The prize consists of a two-part residency. Two months will be spent at CERN, where the winning artist will team up with a scientist as inspirational partner; then one month will be spent at Ars Electronica, where the artist will develop work inspired by the time spent at CERN. Finally, the work will be showcased both at CERN and at the next Ars Electronica Festival, where the next application round for the Digital Arts prize will also be announced.

The second strand of Collide@CERN, covering the disciplines of dance and performance, will be unveiled in November. This strand has been made possible thanks to the generous support of both the City and Canton of Geneva.

“The arts touch the parts that science alone cannot reach, and vice versa,” said Ariane Koek, CERN's cultural specialist. “Collide@CERN gives CERN, artists and scientists the opportunity to engage in creative collisions that can occur when these two areas of human creativity and ingenuity come together.”

Some of the world’s leading artists have agreed to be creative patrons of the Collide@CERN artists’ residency programme. They include Swiss architect Jacques Herzog, German visual artist Andreas Gursky, Japanese video artist Mariko Mori, Dutch photographer Frans Lanting, British musician Brian Eno and British sculptor Antony Gormley, who recently donated a sculpture to the laboratory.

“We are extremely grateful to our external funders, cultural partners and patrons who are making this latest CERN experiment possible,” said Koek. “Without them it could not happen.”

CERN’s CLOUD experiment provides unprecedented insight into cloud formation

Geneva, 25 August 2011. In a paper published in the journal Nature today, the CLOUD1 experiment at CERN2 has reported its first results. The CLOUD experiment has been designed to study the effect of cosmic rays on the formation of atmospheric aerosols - tiny liquid or solid particles suspended in the atmosphere - under controlled laboratory conditions. Atmospheric aerosols are thought to be responsible for a large fraction of the seeds that form cloud droplets. Understanding the process of aerosol formation is therefore important for understanding the climate.

The CLOUD results show that trace vapours assumed until now to account for aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can explain only a tiny fraction of the observed atmospheric aerosol production. The results also show that ionisation from cosmic rays significantly enhances aerosol formation. Precise measurements such as these are important in achieving a quantitative understanding of cloud formation, and will contribute to a better assessment of the effects of clouds in climate models.

“These new results from CLOUD are important because we’ve made a number of first observations of some very important atmospheric processes,” said the experiment’s spokesperson, Jasper Kirkby. “We’ve found that cosmic rays significantly enhance the formation of aerosol particles in the mid troposphere and above. These aerosols can eventually grow into the seeds for clouds. However, we’ve found that the vapours previously thought to account for all aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere can only account for a small fraction of the observations - even with the enhancement of cosmic rays."

Atmospheric aerosols play an important role in the climate. Aerosols reflect sunlight and produce cloud droplets. Additional aerosols would therefore brighten clouds and extend their lifetime. By current estimates, about half of all cloud droplets begin with the clustering of molecules that are present in the atmosphere only in minute amounts. Some of these embryonic clusters eventually grow large enough to become the seeds for cloud droplets. Trace sulphuric acid and ammonia vapours are thought to be important, and are used in all atmospheric models, but the mechanism and rate by which they form clusters together with water molecules have remained poorly understood until now.

The CLOUD results show that a few kilometres up in the atmosphere sulphuric acid and water vapour can rapidly form clusters, and that cosmic rays enhance the formation rate by up to ten-fold or more. However, in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, within about a kilometre of Earth's surface, the CLOUD results show that additional vapours such as ammonia are required. Crucially, however, the CLOUD results show that sulphuric acid, water and ammonia alone – even with the enhancement of cosmic rays - are not sufficient to explain atmospheric observations of aerosol formation. Additional vapours must therefore be involved, and finding out their identity will be the next step for CLOUD.

“It was a big surprise to find that aerosol formation in the lower atmosphere isn’t due to sulphuric acid, water and ammonia alone,” said Kirkby. “Now it’s vitally important to discover which additional vapours are involved, whether they are largely natural or of human origin, and how they influence clouds. This will be our next job.”

The CLOUD experiment consists of a state-of-the-art chamber in which atmospheric conditions can be simulated with high control and precision, including the concentrations of trace vapours that drive aerosol formation. A beam of particles from CERN’s Proton Synchrotron accelerator provides an artificial and adjustable source of cosmic radiation.

NASA Spacecraft Observes New Characteristics Of Solar Flares

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, has provided scientists new information about solar flares indicating an increase in strength and longevity that is more than previously thought.

Solar flares are intense bursts of radiation from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. They are the solar system's largest explosive events and are seen as bright areas on the sun. Their energy can reach Earth's atmosphere and affect operations of Earth-orbiting communication and navigation satellites.

Using SDO's Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) instrument, scientists have observed that radiation from solar flares continue for up to five hours beyond the main phase. The new data also show the total energy from this extended phase of the solar flare's peak sometimes has more energy than the initial event.

"Previous observations considered a few seconds or minutes to be the normal part of the flare process," said Lika Guhathakurta, lead program scientist for NASA's Living with a Star Program at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "This new data will increase our understanding of flare physics and the consequences in near-Earth space where many scientific and commercial satellites reside."
On Nov. 3, 2010, SDO observed a solar flare. If scientists only had measured the effects of the flare as it initially happened, they would have underestimated the amount of energy shooting into Earth's atmosphere by 70 percent. SDO's new observations provide a much more accurate estimation of the total energy solar flares put into Earth's environment.

"For decades, our standard for flares has been to watch the X-rays as they happen and see when they peak," said Tom Woods, a space scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and principal author on a paper in Wednesday's online edition of Astrophysical Journal. "But we were seeing peaks that didn't correspond to the X-rays."

During the course of a year, the team used EVE to map each wavelength of light as it strengthened, peaked, and diminished over time. EVE records data every 10 seconds and has observed many flares. Previous instruments only measured every 90 minutes or didn't look at all wavelengths simultaneously as SDO can.

To compliment the EVE graphical data, scientists used images from another SDO instrument, the Advanced Imaging Assembly (AIA). Analysis of these images showed the main flare eruption and its extended phase in the form of magnetic field lines called coronal loops that appeared far above the original eruption site. These extra loops were longer and became brighter later than the loops from the main flare and also were physically set apart from those of the main flare.

Because this previously unrealized extra source of energy from flares also is impacting Earth's atmosphere, Woods and his colleagues are studying how the late phase flares can influence space weather. Space weather caused by solar flares can affect communication and navigation systems, satellite drag and the decay of orbital debris.

SDO was launched on Feb. 11, 2010. The spacecraft is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun and its dynamic behavior. SDO provides images 10 times clearer than high definition television and more comprehensive science data faster than any solar observing spacecraft in history.

EVE was built by the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado. AIA was built by Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, Calif.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star Program, or LWS. The goal of LWS is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the connected sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.

For more information and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/sunearth