Topic: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory gives insight into how Coronal Mass Ejections form

February 4, 2013 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – On July 18th, 2012, a fairly small explosion of light burst off the lower right limb of the sun. Such flares often come with an associated eruption of solar material, known as a coronal mass ejection or CME – but this one did not.

Something interesting did happen, however. Magnetic field lines in this area of the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, began to twist and kink, generating the hottest solar material – a charged gas called plasma – to trace out the newly-formed slinky shape.

On July 19th, 2012, SDO captured images of a solar flare in numerous wavelengths. The 131 Angstrom wavelength, shown here in the middle and colorized in teal, portrays particularly hot material on the sun, at 10 million Kelvin, which is why the incredibly hot flare shows up best in that wavelength. The 131 wavelength was also able to show kinked magnetic fields known as a flux rope that lay at the heart of a coronal mass ejection (CME), which also erupted at the same time as the flare. (Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

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National Research Council report shows more ways the Sun effects Earth’s Climate

January 10, 2013 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – In the galactic scheme of things, the Sun is a remarkably constant star. While some stars exhibit dramatic pulsations, wildly yo-yoing in size and brightness, and sometimes even exploding, the luminosity of our own sun varies a measly 0.1% over the course of the 11-year solar cycle.

There is, however, a dawning realization among researchers that even these apparently tiny variations can have a significant effect on terrestrial climate. A new report issued by the National Research Council (NRC), “The Effects of Solar Variability on Earth’s Climate,” lays out some of the surprisingly complex ways that solar activity can make itself felt on our planet.

These six extreme UV images of the sun, taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, track the rising level of solar activity as the sun ascends toward the peak of the latest 11-year sunspot cycle.

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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) witnesses Solar Flare emitted by our Sun Saturday, October 20th

October 22, 2012 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – The sun emitted a significant solar flare, peaking at 2:14pm EDT on October 20th, 2012. This flare is classified as an M9 flare. M-class flares are the weakest flares that can still cause some space weather effects near Earth.

Since flares are rated on a scale from 1 to 10, an M9 is a particularly strong M class flare, but still ten times weaker than the most powerful flares, which are labeled X-class.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured this image of an M9-class flare on Oct 20th, 2012 at 2:14pm EDT. This image shows light at a wavelength of 131 Angstroms, which corresponds to material at 10 million Kelvin, and is a good wavelength for observing flares. This wavelength is typically colorized as teal, as shown here. (Credit: NASA/SDO)

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NASA uses data from multiple Observatories to study Coronal Cavities in the Sun’s Atmosphere

September 23, 2012 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – The sun’s atmosphere dances. Giant columns of solar material – made of gas so hot that many of the electrons have been scorched off the atoms, turning it into a form of magnetized matter we call plasma – leap off the sun’s surface, jumping and twisting. Sometimes these prominences of solar material, shoot off, escaping completely into space, other times they fall back down under their own weight.

The prominences are sometimes also the inner structure of a larger formation, appearing from the side almost as the filament inside a large light bulb. The bright structure around and above that light bulb is called a streamer, and the inside “empty” area is called a coronal prominence cavity.

Scientists want to understand what causes giant explosions in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, such as this one. The eruptions are called coronal mass ejections or CMEs and they can travel toward Earth to disrupt human technologies in space. To better understand the forces at work, a team of researchers used NASA data to study a precursor of CMEs called coronal cavities. (Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO))

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NASA prepares to study the Mysterious Arc of Venus during it’s Transit of the Sun June 5th

June 5, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – When Venus transits the sun on June 5th and 6th, an armada of spacecraft and ground-based telescopes will be on the lookout for something elusive and, until recently, unexpected: The Arc of Venus.

“I was flabbergasted when I first saw it during the 2004 transit,” recalls astronomy professor Jay Pasachoff of Williams College. “A bright, glowing rim appeared around the edge of Venus soon after it began to move into the sun.”

For a brief instant, the planet had turned into a “ring of fire.”

The Arc of Venus observed during the planet's 2004 transit by amateur astronomer André Rondi using a 10-cm refractor near Toulouse, France.

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NASA announces Venus Transit of the Sun to take place June 5th

May 19, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – On June 5th, 2012, Venus will pass across the face of the sun, producing a silhouette that no one alive today will likely see again.

Transits of Venus are very rare, coming in pairs separated by more than a hundred years. This June’s transit, the bookend of a 2004-2012 pair, won’t be repeated until the year 2117. Fortunately, the event is widely visible. Observers on seven continents, even a sliver of Antarctica, will be in position to see it.

The Transit of Venus June 8th, 2012 taken by Paul Howell, George Whitney, Kirk Rogers, Cornish, Maine USA

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NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and NASA’s Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory spacecrafts spot something new on the Sun

April 10, 2012 |

Written by Karen C. Fox
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Greenbelt, MD – One day in the fall of 2011, Neil Sheeley, a solar scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., did what he always does – look through the daily images of the sun from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

But on this day he saw something he’d never noticed before: a pattern of cells with bright centers and dark boundaries occurring in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. These cells looked somewhat like a cell pattern that occurs on the sun’s surface — similar to the bubbles that rise to the top of boiling water — but it was a surprise to find this pattern higher up in the corona, which is normally dominated by bright loops and dark coronal holes.

The changes of a coronal cell region as solar rotation carries it across the solar disk as seen with NASA's STEREO-B spacecraft. The camera is fixed on the region (panning with it) and shows the plumes changing to cells and back to plumes again -- based on the observatory's perspective -- during the interval June 7th-14th, 2011. (Credit: NASA/STEREO/NRL)

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Comet Corpses in the Solar Wind

January 21, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – A paper published in today’s issue of Science raises an intriguing new possibility for astronomers: unearthing comet corpses in the solar wind.  The new research is based on dramatic images of a comet disintegrating in the sun’s atmosphere last July.

Comet Lovejoy grabbed headlines in December 2011 when it plunged into the sun’s atmosphere and emerged again relatively intact. But it was not the first comet to graze the sun. Last summer a smaller comet took the same trip with sharply different results. Comet C/2011 N3 (SOHO) was completely destroyed on July 6th, 2011, when it swooped 100,000 km above the stellar surface.  NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded the disintegration.

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Some Comets like it Hot

January 14, 2012 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – Comets are icy and fragile. They spend most of their time orbiting through the dark outskirts of the solar system safe from destructive rays of intense sunlight.  The deepest cold is their natural habitat.

Last November amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered a different kind of comet.  The icy fuzzball he spotted in the sky over his backyard observatory in Australia was heading almost directly for the sun.  On December 16th, less than three weeks after he found it, Comet Lovejoy would swoop through the sun’s atmosphere only 120,000 km above the stellar surface.

Astronomers soon realized a startling fact: Comet Lovejoy likes it hot.

Comet Lovejoy at sunrise on December 25th, 2011. Wayne England took the picture from Poocher Swamp, west of Bordertown, South Australia

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Comet Lovejoy Plunges into the Sun and Survives

December 17, 2011 |

Written by Dr. Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Greenbelt, MD – Friday morning, an armada of spacecraft witnessed something that many experts thought impossible. Comet Lovejoy flew through the hot atmosphere of the sun and emerged intact.

“It’s absolutely astounding,” says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab in Washington D.C. “I did not think the comet’s icy core was big enough to survive plunging through the several million degree solar corona for close to an hour, but Comet Lovejoy is still with us.”

The comet’s close encounter was recorded by at least five spacecraft: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and twin STEREO probes, Europe’s Proba2 microsatellite, and the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory.  The most dramatic footage so far comes from SDO, which saw the comet go in and then come back out again.

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