Sun corona 2006 eclipse movie#

Inouye Solar Telescope, now under construction on Maui, will observe this range with faster imaging and better spatial resolution. After all, telescopes from the National Solar Observatory (NSO) regularly observe the corona near the photosphere up to a height of about 1.3 solar radii. Given all the ground- and space-based telescopes involved in solar research, you might think there’s no need for such an effort. Inner-outer images: NASA / SOHO middle image: John Brown & Robert Arnold This composite image of the March 2006 total solar eclipse combines outer-corona data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory’s LASCO C2 coronagraph (red), a white-light eclipse image taken from the ground, and an image of the Sun itself from SOHO’s Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (blue). The Citizen CATE Experiment intends to open a new window through which to study the dynamics of the inner solar corona. If all goes well, a small group of volunteers in Rosebud will collect images of the eclipse for a unique project called the Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse Experiment. But on that Monday in 2017, millions of Americans will see this rare event and experience firsthand the strangeness of having the Sun disappear from the sky. Such an extraordinary event hasn’t been seen in the continental United States since 1979. The spectacle of a total solar eclipse will interrupt daily activities for about 2½ minutes, as the Moon blocks the bright solar surface to reveal the faint, delicate, and filamentary solar corona. Rosebud, Missouri, will see day turn to night just after lunch on August 21, 2017. CfA scientists, organized into six research divisions, study the origin, evolution and ultimate fate of the universe.Solar scientists hope an armada of amateur astrophotographers can record the inner corona’s evolution throughout the 2017 total solar eclipse. Headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is a joint collaboration between the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Harvard College Observatory. “Flares are most dramatic in X-rays and we’re using the X-ray Telescope to better understand the physical mechanisms that drive flares so that they might someday be forecasted.”Ī question-and-answer with McCauley is available on the Smithsonian Science website. “We are very interested in studying solar flares,” adds McCauley.

The sun’s surface is only 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, while the corona is more than 100 times hotter. The energy source that heats the corona is a puzzle. Gas in the solar corona reaches temperatures of millions of degrees.

The XRT collects X-rays emitted from the sun’s corona - the hot, tenuous outer layer that extends from the sun’s visible surface into the inner solar system.

Hinode’s X-ray Telescope is the highest resolution solar X-ray telescope ever flown. The XRT was developed and built by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Sun corona 2006 eclipse movie#

“This is only the second annular eclipse Hinode has witnessed since it launched in 2006,” says astrophysicist Patrick McCauley of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.Ī movie of the eclipse as observed by Hinode’s X-ray Telescope (XRT) is online. (The apparent size of the moon depends on its distance from Earth or, in this case, the spacecraft.) About one-third of all solar eclipses are annular. What’s more, because of its vantage point Hinode witnessed a “ring of fire” or annular eclipse.Īn annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly in front of the sun but doesn’t cover it completely because the moon appears too small. The Hinode spacecraft was in the right place at the right time to catch the solar eclipse. While avid stargazers in North America looked up to watch the spectacle, the best vantage point was several hundred miles above the North Pole. The moon passed between the Earth and the sun on Thursday, Oct.