PICK OF THE WEEK
Pick of The Week
A week in the life of the Sun (September 25, 2002)
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The images and video clip cover one week's solar rotation (an image
per day) of the Sun for September 17-24, 2002 with two different
kinds of images. On the left, the Sun's corona is observed in extreme
ultraviolet light at 171Å. At right, we use magnetograms, which
reveals magnetic activity on or near the surface of the Sun. Black
and white indicates opposite magnetic polarities, like the opposite
ends of a bar magnet -- the kind that produces patterns of iron
filings. These look a lot like the coronal loops that we see in the
ultraviolet image (left) which extend out from and back to the
surface. In visible light the black and white areas would be seen as
sunspots, which are the source for the strong coronal mass ejections
that blast out from the Sun quite frequently.
SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display. If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov. |
