Solstice Celebration
Explanation:
Season's greetings!
Today or tomorrow, depending on your time zone, the Sun
reaches
its northernmost point in planet Earth's sky
marking
a
season
change and the first solstice of the year 2004.
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 right hand 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.
