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Ulysses and Earth of Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC)
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The fastest CME of Cycle 23
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| Title |
The fastest CME of Cycle 23 overtakes another fast CME |
| Abstract |
On November 4, 2003, the Sun produced its fastest coronal mass ejection (CME) for cycle 23 out of the active region 0486 located near the southwest limb of the Sun. The CME was expelled with a speed of approximately 2700 km/s. At the time of the launch of this CME, there was another ejection in progress from the same region. The previous ejection started about 7 hours earlier with a speed of about 1000 km/s. The fastest CME overtook the previous one within 2 hours and produced a spectacular radio radiation detected by the Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft. The movie shows the radio emission and the two interacting CMEs as observed by the SOHO spacecraft. |
| Completed |
2004-05-13 |
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The fastest CME of Cycle 23
…
| Title |
The fastest CME of Cycle 23 overtakes another fast CME |
| Abstract |
On November 4, 2003, the Sun produced its fastest coronal mass ejection (CME) for cycle 23 out of the active region 0486 located near the southwest limb of the Sun. The CME was expelled with a speed of approximately 2700 km/s. At the time of the launch of this CME, there was another ejection in progress from the same region. The previous ejection started about 7 hours earlier with a speed of about 1000 km/s. The fastest CME overtook the previous one within 2 hours and produced a spectacular radio radiation detected by the Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft. The movie shows the radio emission and the two interacting CMEs as observed by the SOHO spacecraft. |
| Completed |
2004-05-13 |
|
The fastest CME of Cycle 23
…
| Title |
The fastest CME of Cycle 23 overtakes another fast CME |
| Abstract |
On November 4, 2003, the Sun produced its fastest coronal mass ejection (CME) for cycle 23 out of the active region 0486 located near the southwest limb of the Sun. The CME was expelled with a speed of approximately 2700 km/s. At the time of the launch of this CME, there was another ejection in progress from the same region. The previous ejection started about 7 hours earlier with a speed of about 1000 km/s. The fastest CME overtook the previous one within 2 hours and produced a spectacular radio radiation detected by the Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft. The movie shows the radio emission and the two interacting CMEs as observed by the SOHO spacecraft. |
| Completed |
2004-05-13 |
|
The fastest CME of Cycle 23
…
| Title |
The fastest CME of Cycle 23 overtakes another fast CME |
| Abstract |
On November 4, 2003, the Sun produced its fastest coronal mass ejection (CME) for cycle 23 out of the active region 0486 located near the southwest limb of the Sun. The CME was expelled with a speed of approximately 2700 km/s. At the time of the launch of this CME, there was another ejection in progress from the same region. The previous ejection started about 7 hours earlier with a speed of about 1000 km/s. The fastest CME overtook the previous one within 2 hours and produced a spectacular radio radiation detected by the Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft. The movie shows the radio emission and the two interacting CMEs as observed by the SOHO spacecraft. |
| Completed |
2004-05-13 |
|
The fastest CME of Cycle 23
…
| Title |
The fastest CME of Cycle 23 overtakes another fast CME |
| Abstract |
On November 4, 2003, the Sun produced its fastest coronal mass ejection (CME) for cycle 23 out of the active region 0486 located near the southwest limb of the Sun. The CME was expelled with a speed of approximately 2700 km/s. At the time of the launch of this CME, there was another ejection in progress from the same region. The previous ejection started about 7 hours earlier with a speed of about 1000 km/s. The fastest CME overtook the previous one within 2 hours and produced a spectacular radio radiation detected by the Wind, Ulysses and Cassini spacecraft. The movie shows the radio emission and the two interacting CMEs as observed by the SOHO spacecraft. |
| Completed |
2004-05-13 |
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A GRB 000301C Symphony
| Title |
A GRB 000301C Symphony |
| Explanation |
Telescopic instruments in Earth and space are still tracking a tremendous explosion that occurred across the universe. A nearly unprecedented symphony of international observations began abruptly on March 1 when Earth-orbiting RXTE [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/xte_1st.html ], Sun-orbiting Ulysses [ http://helio.estec.esa.nl/ulysses/ ], and asteroid-orbiting NEAR [ http://near.jhuapl.edu/Education/intro/NEARintro.html ] all detected [ http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/568.gcn3 ] a 10-second burst [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap991104.html ] of high-frequency gamma radiation [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/emspectrum.html ]. Within 48 hours astronomers using the 2.5-meter Nordic Optical Telescope [ http://www.astro.lu.se/not.html ] chimed in with the observation of a middle-frequency optical counterpart [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970407.html ] that was soon confirmed with the 3.5-meter Calar Alto Telescope [ http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/Public/CAHA/ ] in Spain. By the next day the explosion was picked up in low-frequency radio waves [ http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l2/emspectrum.html ] by the by the European IRAM [ http://www.iram.es/ ] 30-meter dish in Spain, and then by the VLA [ http://info.aoc.nrao.edu/doc/vla/html/VLAintro.shtml ] telescopes in the US. The Japanese 8-meter Subaru Telescope [ http://www.subaru.naoj.org/Introduction/outline.html ] interrupted a maiden engineering test [ http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/577.gcn3 ] to trumpet in infrared [ http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/Outreach/Edu/discovery.html ] observations. Major telescopes across the globe soon began playing along as GRB 000301C came into view, detailing unusual behavior [ http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/599.gcn3 ]. The Hubble Space Telescope [ http://www.stsci.edu/hst/ ] captured the above image [ http://www-int.stsci.edu/~fruchter/GRB/000301C/ ] and was the first to obtain [ http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/603.gcn3 ] an accurate distance to the explosion, placing it near redshift 2, most of the way across the visible universe. The Keck II Telescope [ http://www2.keck.hawaii.edu:3636/realpublic/gen_info/gen_info.html ] in Hawaii quickly confirmed and refined [ http://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov/gcn/gcn3/605.gcn3 ] the redshift. Still, no one is sure what type of explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980508.html ] this was. The symphony is not over - oddly no host galaxy [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990210.html ] appears near the position of this explosion. Will one appear as the din of the loud fireball fades [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970917.html ]? |
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Exploring Comet Tails
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Exploring Comet Tails |
| Explanation |
Comets [ http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/billa/tnp/comets.html ] are known for their tails. In the spring [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970320.html ] of 1997 and 1996 Comet Hale-Bopp [ http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/hale_bopp_info.html ] (above) and Comet Hyakutake [ http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/comets_long/96B2.html ] gave us stunning examples [ http://pages.prodigy.net/pam.orman/JoeGallery.html ] as they passed near the Sun. These extremely active comets [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980410.html ] were bright, naked-eye spectacles offering researchers an opportunity to telescopically [ http://encke.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] explore the composition of primordial chunks of our solar system by studying their long and beautiful tails. But it has only recently been discovered that surprising readings [ ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-055.txt ] from experiments on-board the interplanetary Ulysses probe [ http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov ] which lasted for several hours on May 1, 1996, indicate the probe passed through [ http://www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/Ulysses/comet/ ] comet Hyakutake's tail! Ulysses experiments were intended [ http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/science/objectives.html ] to study the Sun and solar wind and the spacecraft-comet [ http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/ ] encounter was totally unanticipated. Relative positions of Ulysses [ http://ulysses-ops.jpl.esa.int/ulysses/ ] and Hyakutake on that date indicate that this comet's ion tail [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960319.html ] stretched an impressive 360 million miles or about four times the Earth-Sun distance [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap981212.html ]. This makes Hyakutake's tail the longest ever recorded [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/isee3.html ] and suggests that comet tails [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap960327.html ] are much longer than previously believed. |
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X-ray Transit Of Mercury
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X-ray Transit Of Mercury |
| Explanation |
This sequence of [ http://www.solar.isas.ac.jp/sxt_co/980626.html ] false color X-ray images captures a rare event - the passage [ http://www.arrakis.es/~xgarciaf/paso.htm ] or transit of [ http://www.dsellers.demon.co.uk/venus/ven_ch4.htm ] planet Mercury in front of the Sun. Mercury's small disk [ http://www.seds.org/nineplanets/nineplanets/mercury.html ] is silhouetted against the bright background of X-rays from the hot Solar Corona [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap970217.html ]. It appears just to the right of center in the top frame and moves farther right as the sequence progresses toward the bottom. The dark notch is a coronal hole near the Solar South Pole [ http://ulysses.jpl.nasa.gov/ ], while a flaring coronal bright point can be seen to the left of the notch in the top frames. The frames were recorded [ http://www.lmsal.com/SXT/html2/Mercury_Transit_of_Solar_Corona.html ] on November 6, 1993 by the Soft X-ray Telescope [ http://www.lmsal.com/SXT/homepage.html ] on board the orbiting Yohkoh satellite [ http://www.lmsal.com/cgi-bin/yopos ]. Transits of Mercury (and Venus) were historically used to discover the geometry of the solar system [ http://beast.as.arizona.edu/textbook/text/CH03.html ] and to map planet Earth [ http://pacific.vita.org/pacific/cook/ ] itself. |
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SGR 1900+14: Magnetar
| Title |
SGR 1900+14: Magnetar |
| Explanation |
On August 27th an intense flash [ http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iauc/07000/07002.html#Item1 ] of X-rays and gamma-rays [ http://cossc.gsfc.nasa.gov/cossc/nasm/VU/vu.html ] swept through our Solar System. Five spacecraft of the Third InterPlanetary gamma-ray burst Network [ http://ssl.berkeley.edu/ipn3/ ], Ulysses [ http://helio.estec.esa.nl/ulysses/ ], WIND [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/heasarc/missions/ggswind.html ], RXTE [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/xte/xte_1st.html ], NEAR [ http://sd-www.jhuapl.edu/NEAR/ ], and BeppoSAX [ http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/sax/saxgof.html ], recorded the high energy signal -- a signal so strong that it saturated detectors on WIND and RXTE and triggered the safety mode automatic shut-off of the NEAR gamma-ray instrument! As plotted here, the count rate for the Ulysses detector abruptly spiked to a high level and then slowly tailed off showing smaller peaks roughly every 5 seconds. The signal and location provided by these spacecraft observations leads researchers to identify the source as a dramatic flare-up from one of only four previously known "Soft Gamma Repeaters" [ http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast19sep97_3.htm ]. These exotic sources of gamma-rays are believed [ http://science.msfc.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast20may98_1.htm ] to be highly magnetized spinning neutron stars called Magnetars [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980527.html ]. Imaginatively cataloged as SGR 1900+14 [ http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/9809140 ], this magnetar is estimated to have been born in a supernova explosion [ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap980425.html ] about 1,500 years ago and to have a magnetic field 500,000,000,000,000 times stronger than Earth's [ http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/Intro.html ]. |
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