ACE

ACE

ACE
ACE
ACE launched into space on August 25th, 1997 and is now unknown km from Earth. Its primary destination is a halo orbit at the Earth-Sun L1 point, which it arrived at on January 21st, 1998 . Wherever ACE goes, it carries its trusty cosmic ray spectrometer, isotope spectrometers, magnetometer, and particle sensors. ACE often chats with humans from Caltech and NASA.

ACE, short for the Advanced Composition Explorer, is a space probe on a mission to study particles from the Sun, our solar system, other stars and our galaxy. By observing these particles, ACE hopes to learn more about the formation and evolution of our solar system. ACE is able to report on solar wind activity (the stream of highly ionized gas the Sun blows out) in near-real-time, providing an early warning to Earth on when intense solar storms are headed our way that could disrupt satellite communications, overload power grids or pose hazards to astronauts. The space probe is expected to have enough propellant to operate until 2024.

Worth Exploring:
(top image: an aurora on Earth, an effect of the space weather ACE looks for, seen from the International Space Station, NASA)