The Paris Meudon ground based support to the NASA Solar Maximum Mission in the eighties

2025/05/26 by Jean-Marie Malherbe, Malherbe, Jean-Marie · 1 voice
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Corona (planetary geology) #Observatory #On board #Photosphere #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Solar cycle #Solar maximum #Solar observatory #Spacecraft Design and Technology #Spectrometer #astro-ph.IM #astro-ph.SR

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2505.20363

published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University)

openalex publication_date 2025/05/26 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

The Solar Maximum Mission of NASA was one of the first satellites with on board digitization of observations. It was launched for the solar maximum of cycle 21 (1980) in order to study the solar activity. It carried many instruments, such as coronagraphs, X and γ ray detectors, an Ultra Violet spectrometer and a radiometer. Ground based support was offered by many institutes, such as Paris Meudon observatory under the form of systematic observations or coordinated campaigns with specific instruments. We present here the Meudon Solar Tower (MST) and magnetograph which offered in the eighties a major contribution with observations of velocity and magnetic fields of the photosphere and chromosphere, while SMM was observing the transition region and corona above.

Discussions

• in the #arXiv The Paris Meudon ground based support to the NASA Solar Maximum Mission in the eighties by Jean-Marie Malherbe arxiv.org/abs/2505.20363 🧪🔭 [bsky, 5 points, 0 comments]

Related

• The golden age of solar magnetography at Paris-Meudon observatory in the second half of the twentieth century
• The magnetism of the solar interior for a complete MHD solar vision
• The Haute Provence monochromatic heliograph (1958-1994)
• The quadruple spectroheliograph of Meudon observatory (1909-1959)
• In pursuit of the Sun, from Jules Janssen to the present day