Photos From Shuttle Clarify Solar Puzzle : Elated Scientists Hope to Explain Cycles of Sun and Other Stars

A few pieces of the puzzle of solar phenomena were captured in space and brought back to Earth on film by the space shuttle Challenger last month, scientists say.

Scientists at Lockheed Palo Alto Research Laboratories called solar telescope photographs taken on the trouble-plagued August flight “sensational” and said they would help explain the cycles of the sun and other stars.

“This will allow us for the first time to understand the evolution of the convective process on the surface of the sun,” said solar physicist Loren Acton. “This mission’s data is really sensational. I can’t tell you how pleased we are with it.”

The quality of the photos was a surprise and a relief to the scientists, as the Lockheed-designed telescope worked properly only five hours on the last day of the eight-day mission.

Acton, who was aboard the shuttle, said the photos provide the first detailed composite of the sun’s surface.

About 125 feet of film--or 1,200 frames--show with unusual clarity and consistency how energy flows through the movement of gas clouds in the sun’s magnetic field, Acton said. About 275 more feet of film has yet to be developed, he said.

Acton said the data may contain an explanation of extreme weather changes on Earth and such atmospheric mysteries as the colorful displays of shimmering light, called auroras, in the far northern and southern hemispheres.

However, it will be months before scientists complete their analysis of the photos, said John-David Bartoe, a payload specialist on the 19th shuttle mission.

Scientists showed reporters a sample picture of a sunspot with gas cloud “filaments” about 10,000 miles long and 700 miles wide rising out of it.

Sunspots are dark regions in the sun’s corona that are cooler than nearby regions and which fluctuate with the activity of the magnetic fields.

In the picture, other gas clouds, shaped like thunderheads the size of California, looked small--a difference in size Acton said was “certainly . . . new to me.”

Alan Title, who designed one of the mission’s four solar telescopes, described the magnetic fields as the “building blocks” of the sun’s energy transportation system.

If scientists can unravel the processes of the sun’s magnetic field, he said, they may be able to extend the explanation to magnetic fields throughout the solar system, including on Earth.