|
|
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight
…
| Name of Image |
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Contributes to Solar B/Hinode |
| Date of Image |
2006-08-09 |
| Full Description |
Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun?s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth?s magnetic field. Hinode is circling Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams will support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft?s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency?s (JAXA?s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft, the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). Provided by the Multimedia support group at MSFC, this rendering illustrates the Solar-B Spacecraft in earth orbit with its solar panels partially extended. |
|
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight
…
| Name of Image |
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Contributes to Solar B/Hinode |
| Date of Image |
2006-08-09 |
| Full Description |
Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun?s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth?s magnetic field. Hinode is circling Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams will support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft?s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency?s (JAXA?s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft, the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). Provided by the Multimedia support group at MSFC, this video clip is an animated illustration of the Solar-B Spacecraft in earth orbit. |
|
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight
…
| Name of Image |
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Contributes to Solar B/Hinode |
| Date of Image |
2006-08-09 |
| Full Description |
Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun?s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth?s magnetic field. Hinode is circling Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams will support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft?s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency?s (JAXA?s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft, the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). Provided by the Multimedia support group at MSFC, this rendering illustrates the Solar-B Spacecraft in earth orbit with its solar panels completely extended. |
|
Solar B/Hinode Image of Suns
…
| Name of Image |
Solar B/Hinode Image of Sunspot |
| Date of Image |
2005-08-09 |
| Full Description |
Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun?s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth?s magnetic field. Hinode is circling Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams will support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft?s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency?s (JAXA?s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft, the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). This image of a sunspot, taken by Hinode, is a prime example of what the spacecraft can offer. |
|
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight
…
| Name of Image |
NASA?s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Contributes to Solar B/Hinode |
| Date of Image |
2006-08-09 |
| Full Description |
Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun?s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth?s magnetic field. Hinode is circling Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams will support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft?s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency?s (JAXA?s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft, the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT), the X-Ray Telescope (XRT), and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). Provided by the Multimedia support group at MSFC, this video clip is an animated illustration of the Solar-B Spacecraft in earth orbit. |
|
The Sun's Magnetic Field
| Title |
The Sun's Magnetic Field |
| Description |
Hinode is a collaborative mission led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and includes the European Space Agency and Britain's Particle Physics Astronomy Research Council. Image courtesty Hinode, JAXA/NASA., Vivid orange streamers of super-hot, electrically charged gas (plasma) arc from the surface of the Sun, revealing the structure of the solar magnetic field [ http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Spotlight/Magnetic/what.html ] rising vertically from a sunspot. The thin outer surface of the Sun, the corona, is shaped by a complex network of magnetic fields. These magnetic fields are strongest inside sunspots, and their effect on plasma is visible in this image. The gas is drawn along the lines of force [ http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Spotlight/Magnetic/loi.html ] in the sunspot's magnetic field like iron filings gather around a magnet. At the edges of the sunspot, the curving field lines, and thus the plasma, bend over to reconnect with magnetic fields of opposite polarity. This extremely detailed image of the Sun was taken by the Solar Optical Telescope on the newly launched Hinode [ http://www.nasa.gov/hinode ] spacecraft on November 20, 2006. It and other images, which NASA released for the first time on March 21, 2007, reveal that the Sun's magnetic field is much more turbulent and dynamic than previously known. "For the first time, we are now able to make out tiny granules of hot gas that rise and fall in the sun's magnetized atmosphere," said Dick Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophyics Division, Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Hinode, Japanese for "sunrise," was launched September 23, 2006, to study the Sun's magnetic field and how its explosive energy propagates through the different layers of the solar atmosphere. "Hinode is showing how changes in the structure of the magnetic field and the release of magnetic energy in the low atmosphere spread outward through the corona and into interplanetary space to create space weather,' said John Davis, project scientist from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Space weather involves the production of energetic particles (coronal mass ejections) and emissions of electromagnetic radiation (solar flares), which can black out long-distance communications over entire continents and disrupt global navigational systems. Scientists believe that space weather is driven by changes in the magnetic fields around sun spots, but the exact mechanisms that trigger flares and solar storms remain a mystery. "By following the evolution of the solar structures that outline the magnetic field before, during and after these explosive events, we hope to find clear evidence to establish that magnetic reconnection is the underlying cause for this explosive activity,' said Leon Golub of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Hinode will allow scientists study solar storms and flares by revealing changes in the magnetic fields in unprecedented detail. To read more about Hinode's mission to study the Sun and to see additional images, please visit Hinode Mission to the Sun. [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/solar-b/index.html ] |
|
Movie: The Active Sun
| Title |
Movie: The Active Sun |
| Explanation |
Plumes of hot gas shoot across the surface on even an average day on the Sun. Such volatile activity was captured in dramatic detail recently by the new Hinode [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinode ] satellite launched by Japan [ https://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ja.html ] in late September. Near the horizon, active regions [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060611.html ] around a sunspot [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051106.html ] eject hot plasma [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_%28physics%29 ] along the magnetic field [ http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/whmfield.html ] lines that connect the sunspot to surrounding regions in the solar atmosphere [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap050216.html ]. Bright regions are hotter and more active. The bubbling granularity [ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/granulation.html ] and continuous activity of the Sun's photosphere [ http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/sun/photosphere.html ] is visible in the foreground. This frame from the movie [ http://hinode.nao.ac.jp/news_e/20061127_press_e/ ] is in representative color and covers a solar region [ http://hinode.nao.ac.jp/news_e/20061127_press_e/sot_press_en.pdf ] of about 8,000 kilometers. ("Note: To download the full MPG movie file, click on the picture.") |
|
An Active Sunspot Viewed Sid
…
| Title |
An Active Sunspot Viewed Sideways |
| Explanation |
Why are there dark spots on the sun? Although noted for thousands of years, sunspots [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspot ] have been known for decades to be regions of the Sun that are slightly depressed and cooled by the Sun's complex and changing magnetic field [ http://solar.physics.montana.edu/YPOP/Spotlight/Magnetic/what.html ]. High resolution pictures like the above image [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/solar-b/solar_018.html ] from Japan's new Sun-watching Hinode satellite [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinode ], however, are helping to increase modern understanding. In the center of the above image [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/solar-b/solar_018.html ] is a sunspot, but not seen in the usual orientation --this sunspot [ http://www.exploratorium.edu/sunspots/ ] is seen sideways. Of particular interest is erupting glowing gas [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060611.html ] that shows how the Sun's magnetic field comes right out of the spot [ http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/feature1.shtml ] center, but curves markedly around the spot edges. Better understanding [ http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/mar/HQ_07072_Hinode_Images_of_Sun.html ] of how the Sun ejects particles into space may result in more accurate predictions of solar storms that affect [ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo_astronauts.html ] satellites, astronauts, and even power grids on Earth. |
|
The Sun's Magnetic Field: Im
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Vivid orange streamers of su
…
Hinode_2006324
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2006-11-20 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesty Hinode, JAXA/NASA. |
| identifier |
Hinode_2006324 |
|
|
