A Taiwan-made space instrument installed on Japan’s scientific satellite Arase has helped researchers observe aurora formation at unexpectedly high altitudes, helping to advance understanding about space weather and communications systems on Earth, scientists said on Tuesday.
The Taiwanese-Japanese team detailed their findings in a paper titled “Active auroral arc powered by accelerated electrons from very high altitudes,” which was published in the journal Scientific Reports on Monday.
Scientists from National Cheng Kung University (NCKU) and Academia Sinica were in charge of the Low-Energy Particle Experiments-Electron Analyzer, one of the nine instruments on the satellite, enabling it to observe energy distribution and density of low-energy electrons surrounding the Earth.
Photo: Reuters
“This is the first time that Taiwan has manufactured such fine and high-resolution instrument for space measuring,” the university said in a news release.
Auroras are generated by electrons accelerated by a static electric field hitting the atmosphere, producing bright and elongated arcs in the nightside polar regions, Academia Sinica said.
Over the past 50 years, scientists had assumed that the electron acceleration takes places at altitudes of no more than 20,000km, but observations made through the Taiwan-made instrument found that it could occur at altitudes of up to 30,000km, it said.
The breakthrough not only overturns previous conception about the region of auroral formation, but generates new questions about how electrons work at higher altitudes, and might affect space weather, as well as communications and electrical systems on Earth, NCKU Institute of Space and Plasma Sciences professor Sunny Tam (談永頤) said.
While domestic studies on space weather mainly revolve around the ionosphere, Tam said that more attention should be paid to the magnetosphere.
Tam said that his team was in 2010 invited by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to join the satellite’s development.
Due to budgetary concerns, they later invited Academia Sinica to join the team, Tam said.
From 2010 until the satellite was launched in 2016, the university and Academia Sinica devoted nearly NT$30 million (US$1.06 million) to the instrument’s development, he added.
The funding was modest when compared with that of a major satellite project, but the outcome is precious, Tam said, describing the case as an example of optimal international cooperation of space technology that would usually need astronomical funds.
While Taiwan aspires to launch more satellites into space, it should overlook developing advanced scientific instruments in partnership with other countries, he added.
The satellite is operating at an orbit of 200km to 32,000km above ground, meaning their instrument has flown farther than any other Taiwanese instrument has done before, said Wang Shiang-yu (王祥宇), acting director of Academia Sinica’s Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
That also means it has proved resistant to strong radiation and temperature differences of up to 200oC in space, he said.
The satellite, designed to serve for only one year, has operated for more than four years, he added.
As auroras can also be observed in other celestial bodies, the team’s findings would assist other efforts in space exploration, Wang said.
The Arase satellite, formerly known as the Exploration of Energization and Radiation in Geospace, is headed by JAXA, with NCKU and Academia Sinica being the only instrument team from outside of Japan.
HIGH STAKES: An attack on Taiwan could prompt a joint response from the US and Japan, and trigger a global conflict that could bring down the CCP, Liu Tai-ying said The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would not be able to launch an invasion of Taiwan for at least another 10 years, Taiwan Research Institute founder Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) said on Friday. To occupy Taiwan, China needs to transport at least 300,000 to 400,000 troops across the Taiwan Strait during battle, but it would lack the ability to do so for at least another decade, said Liu, a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) treasurer and a close aide to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The challenges that China would face during an attempted invasion of Taiwan would be even greater than those
Taiwan from Thursday is to reinstate visa exemptions for passport holders from 65 countries. Mandatory quarantine for arriving travelers is to be lifted on Oct. 13 , when restrictions on inbound and outbound tour groups are also to be lifted. The following is a list of answers to common questions regarding how the new regulations are to affect inbound international visitors Which passports will have visa-free entry privileges? Eleven more countries on Thursday are to join 54 countries that were given visa-free privileges on Sept. 12. Passport holders from Japan, South Korea, Chile, Israel and Nicaragua can stay in Taiwan for up to 90 days without a visa. Taiwan is also to resume 30-day visa-free stays for citizens of the Dominican Republic, Singapore and Malaysia. Passport holders from Thailand, Brunei and the Philippines are to be allowed to stay in Taiwan for 14 days visa-free. Taiwan on Sept. 12 resumed 90-day visa-free entry for passport holders from the US, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New
HAWAII MODEL: While Hawaii held a referendum on becoming the 50th US state, Taiwan has never applied to join the People’s Republic of China, Miles Yu said China comparing Taiwanese independence to Hawaii seeking independence from the US is illogical, as Taiwan has never applied to be a part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Hudson Institute senior fellow Miles Yu (余茂春) said over the weekend. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅), who is in New York for the UN General Assembly, has given multiple talks asserting Chinese sovereignty over Taiwan. In a speech to the Asia Society on Thursday, Wang likened Taiwan to Hawaii. “Just as the US would not allow Hawaii to break away,” Beijing “reserves the right” to seek unification, Wang told the gathering. The
Taiwanese on average first use pornographic material at the age of 14, an international survey found on Wednesday. Researchers at National Cheng Kung University, who conducted the survey in the nation, said 50.2 percent of Taiwanese respondents said they used pornographic material two to three times per month over the past year. Lin Chung-ying (林宗瑩), an associate professor at the university’s Institute of Allied Health Sciences, said the results indicate that Taiwanese are less sexually active than people in other countries, especially in the West. Taiwanese on average masturbate 10 percent less often than respondents from other nations in the survey, Lin said. The
RSS