Abstract
Picard is a satellite dedicated to the simultaneous measurement of the total and solar spectral irradiance, the solar diameter, the solar shape, and to the Sun’s interior through the methods of helioseismology. The satellite was launched on June 15, 2010, and pursued its data acquisitions until March 2014. A Sun Ecartometry Sensor (SES) was developed to provide the stringent pointing requirements of the satellite. The SES sensor produced an image of the Sun at \(782 \pm 2.5~\mbox{nm}\). From the SES data, we obtained a new time series of the solar spectral irradiance at 782 nm from 2010 to 2014. During this period of Solar Cycle 24, the amplitude of the changes has been of the order of ± 0.08 %, corresponding to a range of about \(2\times 10^{-3}~\mbox{W}\,\mbox{m}^{-2}\,\mbox{nm}^{-1}\). SES observations provided a qualitatively consistent evolution of the solar spectral irradiance variability at 782 nm. SES data show similar amplitude variations with the semi-empirical model Spectral And Total Irradiance REconstruction for the Satellite era (SATIRE-S), whereas the Spectral Irradiance Monitor instrument (SIM) onboard the SOlar Radiation and Climate Experiment satellite (SORCE) highlights higher amplitudes.
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Acknowledgements
Picard is a mission supported by the French national centre for scientific research (CNRS/INSU), by the French space agency (CNES), by the French Atomic Energy and Alternative Energies Commission (CEA), by the Belgian Space Policy (BELSPO), by the Swiss Space Office (SSO), and by the European Space Agency (ESA). The authors would like to thank the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP, United States) for providing the SORCE/SIM data and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany) for providing the SATIRE-S data. In addition, we wish to thank the CNES project managers (François Buisson and Michel Rouzé) of the Picard mission. Finally, the authors thank the anonymous referee for the very good improvements, remarks, and suggestions.
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Meftah, M., Hauchecorne, A., Irbah, A. et al. Solar Spectral Irradiance at 782 nm as Measured by the SES Sensor Onboard Picard . Sol Phys 291, 1043–1057 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-016-0885-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-016-0885-2