Radiation damage to Hubble has been 4.3 years out of phase with the Solar cycle

superkuh

It's well known that higher solar wind/CMEs density/speed/etc that comes with the peak of the 11 year intensity cycles scatters cosmic rays before they enter the inner heliosphere. Combine this with the 1~3 years it takes for the solar wind to travel out through the heliosphere and you get the phase difference. Really cool unintended sensor empirical data on it though. Don't try to correlate with the sun spots, correlate with the solar wind/cmes from the spots getting out far enough to effectively scatter the incoming cosmic rays away.

ck2

you should see what cosmic rays do to space telescopes public almost never sees what raw images look like RAW https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral... FINAL https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/spiral... * https://blog.galaxyzoo.org/2010/04/12/how-to-handle-hubble-i... they also slowly destroy the sensors since they are physical particles moving at almost the speed of light

two_handfuls

This sounds like the "hmm this is strange" first step of discovery.

jimrandomh

Is the relevant radiation solar radiation, or is there damage from radiation coming from the direction the optics are pointed? If it's the latter, then maybe the sun's emissions interact with inbound particles from sources outside the solar system? (I don't have sufficient background or time to check whether the paper already rules this out.)

gramie

And the nearest star to our solar system is 4.3 light years away. Coincidence? :-)

AgentLemon

There is a known reason for this (among radiation belt enthusiasts) that the authors either don't mention or don't know. Hubble's orbit is in the inner Van Allen belt, where the radiation intensity is out of phase with the solar cycle (because the atmosphere is thinner at solar minimum, and expands at solar maximum, affecting the inner radiation belt). See Figure 6 ( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/cms/asset/718954d6-3... ) of this paper ( https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020JA02... ). Hubble is in a low altitude, near equatorial orbit, so the red curve (small L) is the most relevant one.