We present to you just slightly more than one solar rotation of the Sun in extreme UV light taken over the period of April 25 - May 23, 2006. In this wavelength (171 Angstroms) SOHO takes images every 6 hours with a few exceptions and gives them the false color of blue in this case, making it easy to distinguish these images from those in other wavelengths since all SOHO images record intensity in some wavelength range and all SOHO images are originally in black and white.

So you have about 4 frames per day that we ran together at 10 frames per second to create a video clip of the Sun over one full rotation. (The Sun rotates on average about once every 27 days.) The white areas represent active regions of which about 8 can be observed during this period. A clever observer may well realize that an active region in the early part of the video clip could reappear then near the end of the clip, and in fact it does. Notice the pair of active regions on the left side of the Sun on April 25. These regions stay active as the rotation carries around them around and out of sight on May 8. At least one of these regions reappears at just about the same position on May 23. And even if we do not follow each region, it does make for a colorful and visually interesting piece of video.

Previous Picks of the Week

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.