Bright stars of the Pleiades, four planets, and erupting solar plasma are all captured in this spectacular image [
http://sohowww.nasc…] from the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In the foreground of the 15 degree wide field of view, a bubble of hot plasma, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]), is blasting away from the active Sun [
http://www.spacewea…] whose position and relative size is indicated by the central white circle. Beyond [
http://sohowww.nasc…diagram1.jpg ] appear four of the five [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] naked-eye planets [
http://sse.jpl.nasa…planetsfeat.html ] -- courtesy [
http://www.badastro…] of the planetary alignment [
http://science.nasa…ast30mar_1m.htm#alig nments ] which did not destroy the world! In the background are distant stars and the famous Pleiades [
http://www.seds.org…] star cluster, also easily visible to the unaided eye when it shines in the night sky [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Distances for these familiar [
http://www.seds.org…nineplanets.html ] celestial objects are; the Sun [
http://helios.gsfc.…], 150 million kilometers away; Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, about 58, 110, 780, and 1,400 million kilometers beyond the Sun respectively; and the Pleiades [
http://www.ras.ucal…] star cluster at a mere 3,800 trillion kilometers (400 light-years). SOHO itself orbits 1.5 million kilometers sunward of planet Earth. The image [
http://sohowww.nasc…] was recorded by the Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph (LASCO) instrument on board SOHO on Monday, May 15 at 10:42 UT.
Explanation
Bright stars of the Pleiades, four planets, and erupting solar plasma are all captured in this spectacular image [
http://sohowww.nasc…] from the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). In the foreground of the 15 degree wide field of view, a bubble of hot plasma, called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]), is blasting away from the active Sun [
http://www.spacewea…] whose position and relative size is indicated by the central white circle. Beyond [
http://sohowww.nasc…diagram1.jpg ] appear four of the five [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…] naked-eye planets [
http://sse.jpl.nasa…planetsfeat.html ] -- courtesy [
http://www.badastro…] of the planetary alignment [
http://science.nasa…ast30mar_1m.htm#alig nments ] which did not destroy the world! In the background are distant stars and the famous Pleiades [
http://www.seds.org…] star cluster, also easily visible to the unaided eye when it shines in the night sky [
http://antwrp.gsfc.…]. Distances for these familiar [
http://www.seds.org…nineplanets.html ] celestial objects are; the Sun [
http://helios.gsfc.…], 150 million kilometers away; Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn, about 58, 110, 780, and 1,400 million kilometers beyond the Sun respectively; and the Pleiades [
http://www.ras.ucal…] star cluster at a mere 3,800 trillion kilometers (400 light-years). SOHO itself orbits 1.5 million kilometers sunward of planet Earth. The image [
http://sohowww.nasc…] was recorded by the Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph (LASCO) instrument on board SOHO on Monday, May 15 at 10:42 UT.
Explanation
