New Findings on the Not-So-"Quiet" Sun
"Plumes" of outward flowing, hot gasin the Sun's atmosphere may be one source of the solar "wind" of charged particles. These images, taken March 7, 1996, by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), show (top) magnetic fields on the sun's surface near the south solar pole; (middle) an ultraviolet image of the 1 million degree plumes from the same region; and (bottom) an ultraviolet image of the "quiet" solar atmosphere closer to the surface. The top image was taken by the Michelson-Doppler Imager/Solar Oscillations Investigation instrument. The center and bottom images were taken by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT). These images represent the first opportunity scientists have had to see the detailed development over time of the plume structures in which the solar wind is accelerated, at least at the solar poles. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The spacecraft was launched by NASA Dec. 2, 1995 from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. Science operations for the SOHO spacecraft are being conducted by a NASA-ESA team from the Experiment Operations Facility at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Md.
A NEW LOOK AT THE SUN
This image of 1.5-million degree Celsiusgas 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, we can see more suttle and detail magnetic features than ever before. This image is the first time we have been able to get such images except during five-minute rocket flights. Because of SOHO's view of the Sun, science researchers have been able to make movies that show the dynamic every changing nature of the "quiet Sun." SOHO is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. The spacecraft was launched by NASA Dec. 2, 1996 from Cape Canaveral Air Station in Florida. Science operations for the SOHO spacecraft are being conducted by a NASA-ESA team from the Experiment Operations Facility at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. Md. The spacecraft is presently in a halo orbit around a point known as the "L1 Lagrangian point" approximately 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth, where gravitational forces of the Earth and Sun balance one another.
Swirling Galaxy Parents Generations of Stars in Its Center
The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has snapped a view of several star
generations in the central region of the Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), a spiral
region 23 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). NASA
and the Space Telescope Science Institute have issued a press release explaining the study. Copies of relevant pictures can be obtained from the Institute's archives.
Hubble Captures Collision of Gases Near Dying Star
This colorful image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows the collision of two gases near a dying star. Astronomers have dubbed the tadpole-like objects in the upper right-hand corner "cometary knots" because their glowing heads and gossamer tails resemble comets. Although astronomers have seen gaseous knots through ground-based telescopes, they have never seen so many in a single nebula.
Hubble captured thousands of these knots from a doomed star in the Helix nebula, the closest planetary nebula to Earth at 450 light-years away in the constellation Aquarius. Each gaseous head is at least twice the size of our solar system; each tail stretches 100 billion miles, about 1,000 times the Earth's distance to the Sun. The most visible gaseous fragments lie along the inner edge of the star' s ring, trillions of miles from the star at its center. The comet-like tails form a radial pattern around the star like the spokes on a wagon wheel. Astronomers have seen the spoke pattern using ground-based telescopes, but Hubble reveals for the first time the sources of these objects.
Hubble Probes Inner Region of Commet Hyakutake
These are NASA Hubble Space Telescope images of comet Hyakutake
(designated C/1996 B2), taken at 8:30 P.M.. EST on Monday, March 25
when the comet passed at a distance of only 9.3 million miles from
Earth.
Unlike most of the published images of Hyakutake, these Hubble images
focus on a very small region near the heart of the comet, the icy,
solid nucleus. The Hubble images provide an exceptionally clear view
of the near-nucleus region of comet Hyakutake.
The images were image was taken through a red filter with the Wide
Field Planetary Camera 2 (in WF mode). The sunward and tailward
directions are at approximately the 4 o'clock and 11 o'clock positions,
respectively. Celestial North and East are at approximately the 5:30
and 8:30 positions, respectively.
First X-Ray Image of a Comet
A team of U.S. and German astrophysicists have made the first ever
detection of X-rays coming from a comet.
The discovery of a strong radiation signal -- about100 times brighter
than even the most optimistic predictions -- was made March 27, 1996,
during observations of comet Hyakutake using Germany's orbiting ROSAT
satellite.
The Surface of Pluto
The never-before-seen surface of the distant planet Pluto is resolved in these NASA Hubble Space Telescope pictures, taken with the European Space Agency's (ESA) Faint Object Camera (FOC) aboard Hubble.
Discovered in 1930, Pluto has always appeared as nothing more than a dot of light in even the largest earth-based telescopes because Pluto's disk is much smaller than can be resolved from beneath the Earth's turbulent atmosphere. Pluto is 2/3 the size of Earth's Moon but 1,200 times farther away. Viewing surface detail is as difficult as trying to read the printing on a golf ball located thirty-three miles away!
Hubble imaged nearly the entire surface of Pluto, as it rotated through its 6.4-day period, in late June and early July 1994. These images, which were made in blue light, show that Pluto is an unusually complex object, with more large-scale contrast than any planet, except Earth.
Pluto itself probably shows even more contrast and perhaps sharper boundaries between light and dark areas than is shown here, but Hubble's resolution (just like early telescopic views of Mars) tends to blur edges and blend together small features sitting inside larger ones.
The two smaller inset pictures at the top are actual images from Hubble. North is up. Each square pixel (picture element) is more than 100 miles across. At this resolution, Hubble discerns roughly 12 major "regions" where the surface is either bright or dark.
The Larger images (bottom) are from a global map constructed through computer image processing performed on the Hubble data. The tile pattern is an artifact of the image enhancement technique.
Opposite hemispheres of Pluto are seen in these two views. Some of the variations across Pluto's surface may be caused by topographic features such as basins, or fresh impact craters. However, most of the surface features unveiled by Hubble, including the prominent northern polar cap, are likely produced by the complex distribution of frosts that migrate across Pluto's surface with its orbital and seasonal cycles and chemical byproducts deposited out of Pluto's nitrogen-methane atmosphere.
The picture was taken in blue light when Pluto was at a distance of 3 billion miles from Earth.
Credit: Alan Stem (Southwest Research Institute), Marc Buie (Lowell Observatory), NASA and ESA
OAST FLYER Deployment
The Goddard managed OAST-FLYER is the seventh SPARTAN carrier. Prior to deployment and while still attached to the Spartan Flight Servicing Structure (SFSS) via the Release/Engage Mechanism (REM), a crewmember activated, updated, and check out the OAST-FLYER through the use of the PGSC/BIA interface. After checkout, the OAST-FLYER was grappled, and released from the REM, and then deployed by the Remote Manipulator System (RMS). The OAST-FLYER operated in the free-flyer mode for approximately 50 hours. All science and housekeeping was recorded onboard the deploy hardware. After completion of detached operations, the OAST-FLYER was retrieved and reberthed in the orbiter.
A video of the deployment of the OAST-FLYER payload by the orbiter robotic arm.
A source of more indepth information about the OAST-FLYER is found at Goddard OAST-FLYER Information
HOURGLASS NEBULA AROUND A
DYING STAR
This is an image of MyCn18, a young planetary nebula located about
8,000 light-years away, taken with the Wide Field and Planetary Camera
2 (WFPC2) aboard NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST). This Hubble
image reveals the true shape of MyCn18 to be an hourglass with an
intricate pattern of "etchings" in its walls. This picture has been
composed from three separate images taken in the light of ionized
nitrogen (represented by red), hydrogen (green), and doubly-ionized
oxygen (blue). The results are of great interest because they shed new
light on the poorly understood ejection of stellar matter which
accompanies the slow death of Sun-like stars. In previous ground-based
images, MyCn18 appears to be a pair of large outer rings with a smaller
central one, but the fine details cannot be seen.
According to one theory for the formation of planetary nebulae, the
hourglass shape is produced by the expansion of a fast stellar wind
within a slowly expanding cloud which is more dense near its equator
than near its poles. What appears as a bright elliptical ring in the
center, and at first sight might be mistaken for an equatorially dense
region, is seen on closer inspection to be a potato shaped structure
with a symmetry axis dramatically different from that of the larger
hourglass. The hot star which has been thought to eject and illuminate
the nebula, and therefore expected to lie at its center of symmetry, is
clearly off center. Hence MyCn18, as revealed by Hubble, does not
fulfill some crucial theoretical expectations.
Planetary Nebula NGC 7027
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image of planetary nebula NGC 7027
shows remarkable new details of the process by which a star like the
Sun dies.
The nebula is a record of the star's final death throes. Initially the
ejection of the star's outer layers, when it was at its red giant stage
of evolution, occurred at a low rate and was spherical. The Hubble
photo reveals that the initial ejections occurred episodically to
produce the concentric shells. This culminated in a vigorous ejection
of all of the remaining outer layers, which produced the bright inner
regions. At this later stage the ejection was non-spherical, and dense
clouds of dust condensed from the ejected material.
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is launched
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was launched atop an Atlas IIAS expendable launch vehicle at 3:08 a.m. EST, December 2, 1995 from Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Liftoff from Launch Complex 36B on Cape Canaveral Air Station marked the 10th Atlas launch from the Eastern Range for 1995. SOHO is a cooperative effort involving NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) within the framework of the International Solar-Terrestrial Physics Program (ISTP). During its two-year mission, the SOHO spacecraft will gather data on the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind. SOHO was built by Matra Marconi under contract ESA. Lockheed Martin Astronautics built the Atlas IIAS while Lockheed Research Center, provided the launch services. Kennedy Space Center is responsible for government technical oversight of launch vehicle preparations and the launch day countdown activities. ESA has overall mission responsibility for the SOHO project, while NASA is responsible for collection and dissemination of SOHO science data through the Science Operations Center at Goddard Space Flight Center.
Last Revised: 08 September 1997