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Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The Sun: Our Solar System Star

STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) is a solar observation mission providing the most extensive views of the solar corona available utilizing the Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) instrument package of five cameras: an extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI) and two white-light coronagraphs (collectively known as the Sun Centered Instrument Package or SCIP), which image the solar disk and the inner and outer corona, plus two heliospheric imagers (called the HI), which image the space between Sun and Earth. The purpose of SECCHI is to study the 3-D evolution of Coronal Mass Ejections through their full journey from the Sun's surface through the corona and interplanetary medium to their impact at Earth. Below are two examples


This movie is a blend of the EUVI 171-Angstrom and 195-Angstrom wavelengths (yellow component = 171, red = 195) from the STEREO/SECCHI mission. These correspond to solar atmosphere temperatures of 0.9-million degrees and 1.4-million degrees Kelvin, respectively. The movie is made from one image pair per hour for the entire month of August 2010. The 'blocky noise' you see around the edge of the movie is a result of the compression algorithm used for sending the data down from the spacecraft.


This movie is a blend of the EUVI 304-Angstrom and 195-Angstrom wavelengths (silver component = 195, red = 304) from the STEREO/SECCHI mission. These correspond to solar atmosphere temperatures of approximately 80,000 degrees and 1.4-million degrees Kelvin, respectively. The movie is made from one image pair per hour for the entire month of August 2010. The 'blocky noise' you see around the edge of the movie is a result of the compression algorithm used for sending the data down from the spacecraft.

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