Media Information
 
 
 
Collection:
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day Collection
Title:
Follow The Spots
Explanation:
The Sun rotates [ http://wwwssl.msfc.…] on its axis about once every 27 days. How can you tell? Just follow the sunspots [ http://louis.lmsal.…]. This composite picture was constructed from solar images recorded daily by the MDI instrument [ http://soi.stanford…] on board the space-based SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory [ http://sohowww.nasc…] (SOHO). It shows the Sun's [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] visible surface for most days of August 1999 so that the same sunspots appear many times as the solar rotation carries them across the face of the Sun [ http://solar-center…]. Sunspot [ http://es.rice.edu/…] temperatures are around 5,000 degrees C. but the spots appear dark as they are actually cooler than the surrounding regions of the solar surface. The sequential images of the sunspot groups [ http://antwrp.gsfc.…] show how these regions with high magnetic fields change from day to day.
Credit and Copyright:
Louis Strous [ mailto:strous@lmsal. com ] (LMSAL [ http://www.lmsal.co…]), SOHO [ http://sohowww.nasc…] - MDI [ http://soi.stanford…] Consortium, ESA [ http://www.esa.int/], NASA [ http://www.nasa.gov/]
keyword:
sun
keyword:
sunspots
keyword:
solar rotation
facet_when:
August 1999
facet_where:
Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
facet_where:
Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC)
facet_what:
Galileo
facet_what:
Sun
facet_what:
SOHO
facet_when_year:
1999
original url:
http://antwrp.gsfc.…
UID:
SPD-APOD-ap991021

Follow The Spots
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