Science-driven innovation : Developing the right tools for solar research

The goal of the APL solar physics research program is to deepen our understanding of the fundamental physical processes on the Sun. For this purpose we have built and tested innovative solar instruments and telescopes such as the Flare Genesis Experiment and the Solar Bolometric Imager. This article briefly describes the instrumentation program and then focuses on the scientific advances achieved through the flight test program. With the Flare Genesis Experiment, we found that magnetic flux emerges through the solar surface in relatively tiny strands that undulate with a characteristic wavelength of 3000 km. And the first flight of the Solar Bolometric Imager showed remarkable agreement between the measured contrast of features on the solar surface and a blackbody model. We plan to obtain a longer series of measurements that will allow detection of subtle large-scale surface temperature variations and their potential impact on total solar irradiance, which largely controls Earth's climate.