Aberystwyth University to study total solar eclipse in Norway

The team will be joined by scientists from the USA, the Czech Republic and Germany. Credit: ITV News Cymru Wales

Scientists from Aberystwyth University will be heading to the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard later this week to study the total eclipse of the sun on Friday 20 March.

Researchers Joe Hutton and Nathalia Alzate are members of the Solar System Physics Group at the Department of Physics at Aberystwyth University.

They will join an international team of scientists from the USA, the Czech Republic and Germany to study the sun's atmosphere, the corona.

The team, affectionately known as the Solar Wind Sherpas, will use up to 14 specially adapted cameras to photograph the sun at different frequencies during the eclipse to catch images of plasma emitted from the sun's corona.

The plasma is only visible during a total eclipse.

The images will be used to calculate the temperature of the corona.The temperature of the sun is known to be around 6000°C. However the temperature of the corona is around 1,000,000 °C, with some areas reaching 2,000,000 °C.

Data and images captured during the eclipse will be used to develop mathematical models to try and understand this difference in temperature.