Sunday, July 13, 2008

The Sun

Solar Necklace



An EIT (Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope) image from each year of nearly an entire solar cycle assembled by Steele Hill (NASA GSFC). You get this "necklace in blue, green, yellow and orange, depending on which ultraviolet frequency you look at the sun with. Well, do NOT LOOK directly on the sun!


We are moving towards sunspot maximum again. Good for Aurora Borealis watching - not so good for aircraft instruments and satellites like GPS....

The experts are not quite sure when and how fast we will move towards maximum, but a team from NOAA, NASA and IESE (International Space Environment Service) have established Solar Cycle 24 Prediction, a site that releases the latest news about this topic.

It appears however that the show has started :-)



Credit: NOAA. Original image courtesy of NSO/AURA/NSF

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