NASA small explorer mission celebrates ten years and forty thousand X-ray flares
Thursday, February 9, 2012 - 09:31
in Astronomy & Space
(PhysOrg.com) -- On February 5, 2002, NASA launched what was then called the High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI) into orbit. Renamed within months as the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) after Reuven Ramaty, a deceased NASA scientist who had long championed the mission, the spacecraft's job was to observe giant explosions on the sun called solar flares.