Visualizations by
Tom Bridgman
Released on July 23, 2021
The space environment is harsh not only on humans and other living organisms, but instruments also. Damage from solar energetic particles and cosmic rays can slowly degrade performance of an instrument. Fortunately there are ways to characterize and correct for this degradation. The graphics on this page are based on the tutorial AIApy: Modeling Channel Degradation over Time.
After almost a year of operations, there is already a suggestion of a change in instrument response. Here we have AIA 304 data with the color table applied to the raw data (above) and the recalibrated data (below).
Three years later, there is a much more noticeable difference in the calibrated vs. uncalibrated imagery.
Another seven years and the difference is really difficult to miss.