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in his epic saga the inferno the italian

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poet dante tells of ulysses the greek

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hero who fought in the trojan war and

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spent 20 adventurous years wandering the

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earth before returning home

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but as dante relates it ulysses bored

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with domestic life set off on still

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another voyage of discovery

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a voids taught an uninhabited world

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in october of 1990 another ulysses will

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begin an unprecedented voyage of

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exploration

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this modern ulysses is a spacecraft

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bound for a region of our solar system

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never before explored

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stars

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uncounted billions grace our night skies

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but only one holds dominion over the

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earth

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it is the star we call the sun

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the giver of light

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of warmth

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of life itself

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the ancients called it the perfect fire

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the sun is the only star we can see in

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the daytime and the only one close

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enough to study in detail

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it therefore provides scientists a

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unique window for the study of stars

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and the complex processes that go on

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within and around them

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in recent decades astronomers aided by

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increasingly sophisticated instruments

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some earth-based some lofted into space

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above earth's obscuring atmosphere

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have found our sun to be an exceedingly

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but scientists have never been able to

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observe a most important region of the

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sun its poles

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even instruments on spacecraft are

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unable to see over the top of this great

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sphere

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that's because until now we could study

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the sun only from within the ecliptic

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plane

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yet scientists think our understanding

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of the sun would be vastly increased if

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we could observe it from above its poles

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that is the goal of ulysses a joint

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mission between nasa and the european

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space agency eason

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willis meeks is american ulysses project

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manager

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ulysses is a one of a kind mission in

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that it's the first time that we have a

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chance to fly spacecraft over the sun's

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poles to give us a look at the solar

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system from that direction

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we're also going to look at the total

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sun's environment

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we're studying something called a

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heliosphere which is made up of all the

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things influenced by our sun

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it's a joint mission with nasa and the

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european space agency the europeans

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provide a spacecraft

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we provide a launch vehicle and a launch

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facility

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the science investigations are split

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right down the middle the instruments

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there are nine of them hardware

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instruments we provide half and the

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europeans provide the other half

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the mission will be flown from right

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launch is scheduled for october 1990.

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the american space shuttle discovery

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will first carry ulysses into orbit

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around the earth

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there ulysses will be released from the

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after the shuttle has withdrawn to a

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safe distance

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two powerful rocket motors will fire and

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it will take nearly four years to get to

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the sun

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this long journey is made necessary by

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the earth's own orbital motion around

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the sun

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dr edgar page european science

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coordinator explains

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well getting out of the ecliptic plane

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is not very easy it requires a lot of

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launch vehicle energy

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and i suppose that's one of the reasons

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we haven't done the mission before now

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now what's the reason for this well most

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normal launches

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take advantage of the orbital velocity

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of the earth they go along in the same

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direction

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but this time of course we can't do that

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we have to get ourselves perpendicular

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to the velocity of the earth we want out

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of the ecliptic plane

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now the energy available from even a

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nasa shuttle launch is not sufficient to

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do that so we have to ask for some help

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and we get that from the giant planet

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we start from earth we go fast towards

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jupiter

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grabs us and pulls us around from its

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north pole to its south pole and sends

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us off

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south of the ecliptic plain back towards

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the sun

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throughout the mission

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nasa's deep space network will track

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ulysses receiving data from previously

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unexplored regions of our solar system

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scientists are sure to reap a rich

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scientific harvest as ulysses and its

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nine instruments explore previously

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basically we're interested in uh

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making observations over the poles of

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the sun something which has never been

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done before

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we have a lot of reasons for

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wanting to do that

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and many reasons for thinking that

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conditions

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in that

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particular region of space are going to

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be very different than the kinds of

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conditions we've been sampling over the

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last 20 or 30 years

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we have been making measurements

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in a flat two-dimensional plane

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when the object we're really trying to

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understand is basically

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three-dimensional

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and the object of this mission now is to

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extend our knowledge into that third

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dimension

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once we have that knowledge we'll be in

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a better position to reevaluate the

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complicated conditions that we find near

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the solar equator

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its mission will carry ulysses over both

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of the sun's poles to probe the sun's

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corona the diaphanous crown that we see

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only during an eclipse

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the solar wind a gale of charged

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particles that stream away from the sun

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and the tangled magnetic field which is

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carried into space by the solar wind

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finally some of ulysses instruments will

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detect and measure cosmic rays coming

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from the deeper reaches of our milky way

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the sun as we've come to know is far

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from being the perfect fire the ancients

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believed it to be

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it is instead a seething thermonuclear

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cauldron

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vast quantities of energy burst from the

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interior to create unimaginable turmoil

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at the surface

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and as the energy pours outward across

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space it carries ever-shifting electric

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and magnetic fields throughout the solar

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what complicates matters even more is

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that the sun rotates every 27 days

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and material at the equator rotates

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faster than material at the bones

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as a result

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the sun's magnetic and electrical fields

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at the equator become tangled and

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hopelessly complex

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still more complexities arise in the

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constantly shifting corona

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even before spacecraft scientists

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theorized that there was a strong

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relation between the corona and the

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solar wind

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this relation became clear after

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spacecraft made it possible to observe

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the sun from above the earth's

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atmosphere

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that's when scientists discovered huge

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tears in the corona

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these coronal holes here seen as dark

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patches are the source of the solar wind

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low and high energy particles burst

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outward from these vast regions at

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speeds of up to a thousand kilometers

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per second

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solar wind particles move at many

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different speeds and so the fast

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particles bunch up behind the slower

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ones and overtake them

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the result is a traffic jam that snarls

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the magnetic field lines around the

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sun's equator into a tangle that twists

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and knots and becomes ever harder to

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ulysses scientists will also study

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particles that originate during solar

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solar flares are the most catastrophic

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and energetic events on the sun

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the particles they yield have extremely

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high energies

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these high energy particles explode

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outward

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leaping from one magnetic field line to

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another further distorting the picture

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around the sun's equator

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but over the poles there should be less

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turmoil and therefore greater simplicity

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that simplicity should bring valuable

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while ulysses is near the poles it will

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also measure cosmic rays

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particles from dying suns far more

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distant than our own

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cosmic rays are born in the cataclysm of

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supernovas

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old stars which suddenly explode with

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unimaginable violence

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hurled across space with incredible

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energy cosmic rays bear the signature of

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the events that formed

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but cosmic rays entering the solar

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system near the equator interact with

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the solar wind and the sun's magnetic

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field

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as a result they are changed so

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dramatically as to be nearly

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above the poles however cosmic rays

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should change very little enabling us to

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understand the messages of cosmic events

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i sometimes get asked why we do missions

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like ulysses

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well humans are curious beings and we

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like to know what's over the next hill

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so to speak

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and just like in dante's story ulysses

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went off to explore unknown lands

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the ulysses spacecraft is our way of

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exploring unknown regions of space

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and our reward will be a better

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understanding of the environment in

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which the earth moves