Solstice Celebration
Explanation:
Aloha and Season's greetings!
On December 22nd, at 01:14
Universal Time
(December 21, 3:14pm Hawaii-Aleutian
Standard
Time), the Sun reaches its southernmost point in planet Earth's sky
marking
the final
season
change for the year 2002.
In
celebration,
consider this delightfully detailed, brightly colored
image of the
active Sun.
From the
EIT instrument onboard
the space-based SOHO observatory,
the tantalizing picture is a false-color composite of three images all
made in extreme ultraviolet light.
Each
individual
image highlights a different
temperature regime in the
upper solar atmosphere
and was assigned a specific color;
red at 2 million, green at 1.5 million, and blue at 1 million
degrees C.
The combined image shows bright
active regions strewn across the solar
disk, which would otherwise appear as dark groups of sunspots in visible
light images, along with some magnificent plasma loops and an
immense prominence
at the righthand solar limb.
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
