| Contributors: |
Antonucci, Ester; Romoli, Marco; Andretta, Vincenzo; Fineschi, Silvano; Heinzel, Petr; Moses, J. Daniel; Naletto, Giampiero; Nicolini, Gianalfredo; Spadaro, Daniele; Teriaca, Luca; Berlicki, Arkadiusz; Capobianco, Gerardo; Crescenzio, Giuseppe; Da Deppo, Vania; Focardi, Mauro; Frassetto, Fabio; Heerlein, Klau; Landini, Federico; Magli, Enrico; Marco Malvezzi, Andrea; Massone, Giuseppe; Melich, Radek; Nicolosi, Piergiorgio; Noci, Giancarlo; Pancrazzi, Maurizio; Pelizzo, Maria G.; Poletto, Luca; Sasso, Clementina; Schühle, Udo; Solanki, Sami K.; Strachan, Leonard; Susino, Roberto; Tondello, Giuseppe; Uslenghi, Michela; Woch, Joachim; Abbo, Lucia; Bemporad, Alessandro; Casti, Marta; Dolei, Sergio; Grimani, Catia; Messerotti, Mauro; Ricci, Marco; Straus, Thoma; Telloni, Daniele; Zuppella, Paola; Auchère, Frederic; Bruno, Roberto; Ciaravella, Angela; Corso, Alain J.; Alvarez Copano, Miguel; Aznar Cuadrado, Regina; D’Amicis, Raffaella; Enge, Reiner; Gravina, Alessio; Jejčič, Sonja; Lamy, Philippe; Lanzafame, Alessandro; Meierdierks, Thimo; Papagiannaki, Ioanna; Peter, Hardi; Fernandez Rico, German; Giday Sertsu, Mewael; Staub, Jan; Tsinganos, Kanari; Velli, Marco; Ventura, Rita; Verroi, Enrico; Vial, Jean-Claude; Vives, Sebastien; Volpicelli, Antonio; Werner, Stephan; Zerr, Andrea; Negri, Barbara; Castronuovo, Marco; Gabrielli, Alessandro; Bertacin, Roberto; Carpentiero, Rita; Natalucci, Silvia; Marliani, Filippo; Cesa, Marco; Laget, Philippe; Morea, Danilo; Pieraccini, Stefano; Radaelli, Paolo; Sandri, Paolo; Sarra, Paolo; Cesare, Stefano; Del Forno, Felice; Massa, Ernesto; Montabone, Mauro; Mottini, Sergio; Quattropani, Daniele; Schillaci, Tiziano; Boccardo, Roberto; Brando, Rosario; Pandi, Arianna; Baietto, Cristian; Bertone, Riccardo; Alvarez-Herrero, Alberto; García Parejo, Pilar |
| Description: |
Aims. Metis is the first solar coronagraph designed for a space mission and is capable of performing simultaneous imaging of the o-limb solar corona in both visible and UV light. The observations obtained with Metis aboard the Solar Orbiter ESA-NASA observatory will enable us to diagnose, with unprecedented temporal coverage and spatial resolution, the structures and dynamics of the full corona in a square field of view (FoV) of 2:9 in width, with an inner circular FoV at 1:6, thus spanning the solar atmosphere from 1.7 R to about 9 R, owing to the eccentricity of the spacecraft orbit. Due to the uniqueness of the Solar Orbiter mission profile, Metis will be able to observe the solar corona from a close (0.28AU, at the closest perihelion) vantage point, achieving increasing out-of-ecliptic views with the increase of the orbit inclination over time. Moreover, observations near perihelion, during the phase of lower rotational velocity of the solar surface relative to the spacecraft, allow longer-term studies of the o-limb coronal features, thus finally disentangling their intrinsic evolution from eects due to solar rotation. Methods. Thanks to a novel occultation design and a combination of a UV interference coating of the mirrors and a spectral bandpass filter, Metis images the solar corona simultaneously in the visible light band, between 580 and 640 nm, and in the UV Hi Lyman- line at 121.6 nm. The visible light channel also includes a broadband polarimeter able to observe the linearly polarised component of the K corona. The coronal images in both the UV Hi Lyman- and polarised visible light are obtained at high spatial resolution with a spatial scale down to about 2000 km and 15 000 km at perihelion, in the cases of the visible and UV light, respectively. A temporal resolution down to 1 s can be achieved when observing coronal fluctuations in visible light. Results. The Metis measurements, obtained from dierent latitudes, will allow for complete characterisation of the main physical parameters and dynamics of ... |