Paper 13093-274
Paper 13093-274
SUIM project: measuring the upper atmosphere from the ISS by observations of the CXB transmitted through the Earth rim
21 June 2024 • 10:50 - 11:10 Japan Standard Time | Room G414/415, North - 4F
Abstract
The upper atmosphere around altitudes of ∼100 km has the least observational data of all atmospheres due to the difficulties of in-situ observations. Aiming to observe the density of the upper atmosphere, we are developing an X-ray camera dedicated to atmospheric observations to install on the exposed area of the International Space Station (ISS). With the X-ray camera, we will observe the cosmic X-ray background (CXB) transmitted through the Earth rim, measure the absorption column density via spectroscopy, and thus obtain the density of the upper atmosphere. The X-ray camera is composed of a slit collimator and an X-ray SOI-CMOS pixel sensor, and will stand on its own and make observations, controlled by a CPU-embedded FPGA “Zynq”. We plan to install the camera on the ISS in 2025 when the Sun will be at its maximum. In this paper, we report the outline of this project and the development status.
Presenter
Kumiko K. Nobukawa
Kindai Univ. (Japan)
Kumiko Nobukawa is an X-ray astronomer, and studies diffuse X-ray emissions in our galaxy. Also, she developed X-ray CCDs onboard the Hitomi and XRISM satellites. Recently, she led the development and production of Kindai University's first nano-satellite, SpaceTuna1, which was released from the ISS in 2022. Based on this knowledge and experiments, she conceived a project to measure the upper atmospheric density by observing the CXB transmitted through the Earth rim, and she is the PI of the project.