SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

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SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

Post by bystander » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:44 pm

NASA's New Eye on the Sun Delivers Stunning First Images
NASA SDO - 21 April 2010
NASA's recently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is returning early images that confirm an unprecedented new capability for scientists to better understand our sun’s dynamic processes. These solar activities affect everything on Earth.

Some of the images from the spacecraft show never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun’s surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

"These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,” said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society. This mission will have a huge impact on science, similar to the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope on modern astrophysics.”
Image
A full-disk multiwavelength extreme ultraviolet image of the sun taken by SDO on March 30, 2010. False colors trace different gas temperatures. Reds are relatively cool (about 60,000 Kelvin, or 107,540 F); blues and greens are hotter (greater than 1 million Kelvin, or 1,799,540 F). Credit: NASA

Image
This image compares the relative size of SDO's imagery to that of other missions. Credit: NASA

NASA SDO First Light Briefing Material

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Re: SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

Post by bystander » Wed Apr 21, 2010 6:48 pm


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Re: SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

Post by BMAONE23 » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:15 pm

Here is another place with links to movie files

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Science@NASA: First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory

Post by bystander » Thu Apr 22, 2010 2:13 am

First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory
Science@NASA - 21 April 2010
Warning, the images you are about to see could take your breath away.

At a press conference today in Washington DC, researchers unveiled "First Light" images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, a space telescope designed to study the sun.

"SDO is working beautifully," reports project scientist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This is even better than we could have dreamed."

Launched on February 11th from Cape Canaveral, the observatory has spent the past two months moving into a geosynchronous orbit and activating its instruments. As soon as SDO's telescope doors opened, the spacecraft began beaming back scenes so beautiful and puzzlingly complex that even seasoned observers were stunned.
Four videos linked.

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Re: SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

Post by bystander » Wed Apr 28, 2010 5:52 am

SDO Observes Massive Eruption, Scorching Rain
Science@NASA - 27 April 2010
Just last week, scientists working with NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) released the most astonishing movies of the sun anyone had ever seen. Now, they're doing it again.

"SDO has just observed a massive eruption on the sun—one of the biggest in years," says Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters in Washington DC. "The footage is not only dramatic, but also could solve a longstanding mystery of solar physics."

Karel Schrijver of Lockheed Martin's Solar and Astrophysics Lab is leading the analysis. "We can see a billion tons of magnetized plasma blasting into space while debris from the explosion falls back onto the sun surface. These may be our best data yet."
Image
Coronal rain. Encircled are two plasma streamers, one hitting the sun's surface and another incoming behind it.

See the hires movies (Quicktime)
Single wave band (304)
Multiple wave bands (304/211/171)

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Re: SDO Delivers Stunning First Images

Post by bystander » Mon May 03, 2010 7:08 pm

Discovery News Videos: Space: SDO Captures Eruptions on Sun
New high-definition footage from the Solar Dynamic Observatory shows coronal mass ejections, huge eruptions of plasma blasting into space before showering back down on the sun's surface. Discovery Space producer Ian O'Neill explains the phenomenon.

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