FIELDS is in a special place on the spacecraft that electronics package is
inside the spacecraft where most of the electronics are but all of our sensors
are mounted on the outside of the spacecraft we have three sensors that
measure magnetic fields that are mounted on a boom behind the spacecraft in the
shadow and shield and then we have five sensors that measure a plasma voltage
these are electric field sensors they extend into full sunlight and they get
very hot two of the key measurements to
understanding coronal heating are the measurement of the magnetic field and
the electric field and together they give us what's called the pointing flux
which is the energy flux of the or the corona and to make those measurements we
have to actually go into that plasma and put sensors in the plasma to measure
magnetic fields and electric fields directly and that's what that's what
fuels will do solar wind is the escaping atmosphere of the Sun that's the
escaping corona of the Sun the corona is heated in a way that we don't understand
yet presumably involving magnetic fields by energy that's like comes from below
and the photosphere and it's heated to such a high temperature that it can
escape the gravitational potential of the Sun and become an escaping wind a
stellar wind the solar wind well the design of the fields instrument is a new
thing for solar wind physics it kind of combines two previous styles of
experimentation there are two ways to measure electric fields in space one is
using a technique that's called a double problem then there's another technique
which is measuring plasma waves or radio waves and fields for the first time
brings these two techniques together I think the very first data that we get
will be revolutionary at first blush it'll just be a bunch of numbers as a
function of time but the team the science team will take those numbers and
make and make visualizations in the form of spectrograms
and eventually those those data will be related to models and so we'll be able
to compare directly 3d visual models of the coronal magnetic field these
measurements have never been made in the environment close to the Sun we've made
measurements similar to this in the Earth's magnetosphere iris ionosphere
but putting a package like this into into the solar corona it's just never
been done the closest anyone's ever been to the
Sun based on what we've seen so far from
spacecraft not quite as close it's going to be striking and I think revolutionary