The Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) is China’s first comprehensive mission dedicated to solar research. It was successfully launched on October 9, 2022. This book is a reprint of a collection of articles originally published in the journal of Solar Physics, comprising 30 papers that present the in-flight performance and early scientific results of ASO-S, with data collected up to March 15, 2024. Together, these papers provide an overview of the mission’s progress during the first one and a half years after the launch. Earlier studies on the mission and its instruments, conducted prior to launch, can be found primarily in special issues of RAA (2019, Vol. 19, No. 11) and Acta Astronomica Sinica (2020, Vol. 61, No. 4). Additional related research has also appeared in journals such as ApJ, A&A, and MNRAS.
ASO-S aims to investigate the relationships between the solar magnetic field, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). It is equipped with three onboard instruments: the Full-disc vector MagnetoGraph (FMG), the Hard X-ray Imager (HXI), and the Lyman-alpha Solar Telescope (LST), which are designed to observe the solar magnetic field, solar flare hard X-ray emissions, and the formation and propagation of CMEs, respectively. The book is organized into four parts. Part One includes five papers detailing the mission’s final technical configuration prior to launch, the first-light results, the in-flight performance and calibration of FMG, HXI, and LST, and the mission’s data center. The remaining three parts are each devoted to scientific research based on observations from FMG, HXI, and LST, respectively.
Reprinted from Solar Physics, Topical Collection: ASO-S Mission: Inflight Performance and First Results.
Table of Contents:
Preface, Part 1: Overview and Inflight Performance.- The Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S).- Calibration and performance of the Full-Disk Vector MagnetoGraph (FMG) on board the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S).- The tests and calibrations of the Hard X-ray Imager aboard ASO-S.- Inflight performance and calibrations of the Lyman-Alpha Solar Telescope on board the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory.- Science Operation and Data Analysis Center of the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) Mission.- Part 2: FMG Related Research.- The magnetic-field calibration of the Full-Disk Magnetograph onboard the Advanced Space Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S/FMG).- Comparison of line-of-sight magnetic field observed by ASO-S/FMG, SDO/HMI and HSOS/SMAT.- A Study on magnetic-sensitivity wavelength position of the working line used by the Full-Disk Magnetograph onboard the Advanced Space Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S/FMG).- Correction for the weakening magnetic field within the sunspot umbra observed by ASO-S/FMG.- Direct measurement of the longitudinal magnetic field in the solar photosphere with Zeeman effect.- Observation of a large-scale filament eruption initiated by two small-scale erupting filaments pushing out from below.- Investigation of decaying β-configuration sunspot in active region NOAA 13229.- The solar origin of an intense geomagnetic storm on 1 December 2023: successive slipping and eruption of multiple magnetic flux ropes.- Comparison of relative magnetic helicity flux calculation results based on the line-of-sight magnetograms of ASO-S/FMG and SDO/HMI.- Part 3: HXI Related Research.- A new solar hard X-ray image reconstruction algorithm for ASO-S/HXI based on deep learning.- Spectral cross-calibrations of ASO-S/HXI with other X-ray missions.- The solar aspect system of the Hard X-ray Imager onboard ASO-S.- Multiwavelength observations of quasiperiodic pulsations in the impulsive phase of an eruptive flare with the Hard X-Ray Imager on board ASO-S and other instruments.- A statistical investigation of the Neupert effect in solar flares observed with ASO-S/HXI.- Spatial and spectral evolution of microwave and X-ray sources during the solar limb flare on February 5, 2023.- High-resolution observation of blowout jets regulated by sunspot rotation.- Kink-and-Disconnection Failed Eruption in 3D.- Triangulation of hard X-ray sources in an X-Class solar flare with ASO-S/HXI and Solar Orbiter/STIX.- Part 4: LST Related Research.- Automatic solar flare detection using the Solar Disk Imager onboard the ASO-S mission.- A statistical study of solar white-light flares observed by the White-Light Solar Telescope of the Lyman-Alpha Solar Telescope on the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S/LST/WST) at 360 nm.- Spectral and imaging observations of a C2.3white-light flare from the Advanced Space-Based Solar Observatory (ASO-S) and the Chinese Hα Solar Explorer (CHASE).- Asymmetric hard X-ray radiation of two ribbons in a thermal-dominated C-class flare.- Rising of two crossing prominences and the resulting oscillations.- Association between a failed prominence eruption and the drainage of mass from another prominence.- Parameter effects on the total intensity of H I Lyα line for a modeled coronal mass ejection and its driven shock.
About the Author :
Dr. Weiqun Gan earned his PhD (1989) in the Department of Astronomy at Nanjing University. Following his education, he joined the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and was promoted to full professor in 1995. From 2004 to 2014, he served as Deputy Director of PMO. For many years, his research has focused on solar flares through modeling the atmosphere, hydrodynamics, spectroscopy, and high-energy solar physics. He has been actively involved in nearly every project aimed at advancing space-based solar observations in China. In 2011, he proposed the mission concept for ASO-S and led its pre-study from 2011 to 2013. From 2014 to 2016, he led the background development of the mission. In late 2017, ASO-S was formally established by CAS, with Gan appointed as the Chief Scientist for the mission. To date, he has authored/co-authored around 300 publications, including the monograph titled High Energy Solar Physics (2002, Science Press, in Chinese).
Dr. John Leibacher is a solar physicist, working primarily on atmospheric dynamics and helioseismology, who was previously at the National Solar Observatory (NSO), in Tucson, Arizona, USA for many years where he was director and director of the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG), and he is currently at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Université de Paris-Saclay, Orsay, France and the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona. He has been actively involved in a number of space missions. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Solar Physics for 19 years and he previously served for a number of years on the Editorial Committee of the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
Dr. Cristina H. Mandrini is a Senior Researcher at the Instituto de Astronomía y Física del Espacio, Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas and Universidad de Buenos Aires, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She has been the head of the Solar Physics Group in this institution for more than 20 years and Assistant and Associate Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires for 17 years. She is interested in solar active phenomena, their origin, magnetic field modelling, topology calculation, and their impact in the interplanetary medium. She is full member of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales since 2018, in which she is the present President of the Physics, Mathematics, and Astronomy Section, and a member of its Board of Directors, as well as full member of The World Academy of Sciences. She has been Editor-in-Chief of the journal Solar Physics since 2016.
Dr. Lidia van Driel-Gesztelyi is a solar physicist, working on the formation and evolution of solar active regions and their magnetic activity phenomena (e.g. flares and coronal mass ejections), magnetic helicity, coronal heating, elemental composition of the solar corona, and the origin of the solar wind. She is Emeritus Professor of Space and Climate Physics at University College London, UK, and Emeritus Researcher at Konkoly Observatory, Hungary. She has served in various leadership roles in the International Astronomical Union. She was awarded the Service Award of the Royal Astronomical Society, UK, Doctor Honoris Causa of Paris Observatory, France, and Order of Merit of Hungary. She has been Editor-in-Chief of the journal Solar Physics since 2005 and served for five years on the Editorial Committee of the Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
