PICK OF THE WEEK
Pick of The Week
Rudolph Makes an Appearance (December 11, 2003)
 |
 Click on the image for a GIF animation |
Hi-res TIF image (1.3M)
Original: JPEG image ( 40K), TIF
image (1.6M).
Quicktime movie: Large (371K), Small (117K).
|
Just as we sometimes seem to see distinct shapes of things in clouds,
one of our clever viewers saw what appears to be the outline of Rudolph
the Red-Nosed reindeer. Peter Kuklok from Germany, came up with the
outline, and we could not resist sharing it with everyone else. Of
course, what we are really perceiving in the darker area (when viewed
in extreme ultraviolet light) is a substantial coronal hole, a part of
the Sun where solar particles are following open magnetic field lines
out into space. Like sunspots, they do not stay the same, bur rather
develop and change over time. These can send enough particles that,
when they reach Earth, can generate minor geomagnetic disturbances with
some aurora as well.
Please visit our Newsroom for press releases and media coverage.
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. |
