Intermittent Flow (July 12, 2007)

Over a four-day period (July 7-11, 2007) of watching the Sun's atmosphere with SOHO's C2 coronagraph, we observed a sputtering outflow of particles from an active region. Although none of the distinct outbursts were particulary strong, at least six to eight clouds of particles were thrust into space. The rest of the time was generally marked by recurrent flows or a streaming of charged particles. That active region has since lost much of its energy and is much quieter than it was. The white circle represents the size of the Sun, which is covered by an occulting disk (solid red in this image) so that we can see the faint features of the activity in the Sun's corona.

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.