Stellar Imager (SI) - A Mission to Resolve Stellar Surfaces, Interiors, and Magnetic Activity.

摘要

The Stellar Imager (SI) is a space-based, UV/Optical Interferometer (UVOI) designed to enable 0.1 milli-arcsecond (mas) spectral imaging of stellar surfaces and of the Universe in general. It will also probe via asteroseismology flows and structures in stellar interiors. SI will enable the development and testing of a predictive dynamo model for the Sun, by observing patterns of surface activity and imaging of the structure and differential rotation of stellar interiors in a population study of Sun-like stars to determine the dependence of dynamo action on mass, internal structure and flows, and time. SI's science focuses on the role of magnetism in the Universe and will revolutionize our understanding of the formation of planetary systems, of the habitability and climatology of distant planets, and of many magnetohydrodynamically controlled processes in the Universe. SI is a Landmark Discovery Mission; in the 2005 Heliophysics Roadmap, an implementation of the UVOI in the 2006 Astrophysics Strategic Plan, and a NASA Vision Mission; NASA Space Science Vision Missionst; (2008, ed. M. Allen). We present here the science goals of the SI Mission, a mission architecture that could meet those goals, and the technology development needed to enable this mission.