Views of the Sun
Sun Prominence
This image was acquired from NASA's Skylab space station on December 19, 1973. It shows one of the most spectacular solar flares ever recorded, propelled by magnetic forces, lifting off from the Sun. It spans more than 588,000 km (365,000 miles) of the solar surface. In this photograph, the solar poles are distinguished by a relative absence of supergranulation network, and a much darker tone than the central portions of the disk.
Comet SOHO-6 and Solar Polar Plumes
This image of the solar corona was acquired on 23 December 1996 by the LASCO instrument on the SOHO spacecraft. It shows the inner streamer belt along the Sun's equator, where the low latitude solar wind originates and is accelerated. Over the polar regions, one sees the polar plumes all the way out to the edge of the field of view. The field of view of this coronagraph encompasses 8.4 million kilometers (5.25 million miles) of the inner heliosphere. The frame was selected to show Comet SOHO-6, one of seven sungrazers discovered so far by LASCO, as its head enters the equatorial solar wind region. It eventually plunged into the Sun.
Eclipse From STEREO Spacecraft
This is a frame from the Feb. 25, 2007 movie of the transit of the Moon across the face of the Sun. This sight was visible only from the STEREO-B spacecraft in its orbit about the sun, trailing behind the Earth. NASA's STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft launched in October, 2006 to study solar storms. The transit started at 1:56 am EST and continued for 12 hours until 1:57 pm EST. STEREO-B is currently about 1 million miles from the Earth, 4.4 times farther away from the Moon than we are on Earth. As the result, the Moon appeared 4.4 times smaller than what we are used to. This is still, however, much larger than, say, the planet Venus appeared when it transited the Sun as seen from Earth in 2004.
The Unquiet Sun
This sequence of images of the the Sun in ultraviolet light was taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft on February 11, 1996 from its unique vantage point at the "L1" gravity neutral point 1 million miles sunward from the Earth. An "eruptive prominence" or blob of 60,000°C gas, over 80,000 miles long, was ejected at a speed of at least 15,000 miles per hour. The gaseous blob is shown to the left in each image. These eruptions occur when a significant amount of cool dense plasma or ionized gas escapes from the normally closed, confining, low-level magnetic fields of the Sun's atmosphere to streak out into the interplanetary medium, or heliosphere. Eruptions of this sort can produce major disruptions in the near Earth environment, affecting communications, navigation systems and even power grids.
A New Look at the Sun
This image of 1,500,000°C gas in the Sun's thin, outer atmosphere (corona) was taken March 13, 1996 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structures. Because of the high quality instrument, more of the subtle and detail magnetic features can be seen than ever before.
X-Ray Image
This is an X-ray image of the Sun obtained on February 21, 1994. The brighter regions are sources of increased X-ray emissions.
Solar Disk in H-Alpha
This is an image of the Sun as seen in H-Alpha. H-Alpha is a narrow wavelength of red light that is emitted and absorbed by the element hydrogen.
Solar Flare in H-Alpha
This is an image of a solar flare as seen in H-Alpha.
Solar Magnetic Fields
This image was acquired February 26, 1993. The dark regions are locations of positive magnetic polarity and the light regions are negative magnetic polarity.
Sun Spots
This image shows the region around a sunspot. Notice the mottled appearance. This granulation is the result of turbulent eruptions of energy at the surface.
