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| ESA offers a new way of looking at the Sun |
| ESA has released interactive, open-source software that gives both scientists and the public an unprecedented insight into the ever-changing face of the Sun. JHelioviewer allows easy access to over 14 years worth of data from the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) along with the latest information beaming back from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). |
| Date: 14 Dec 2010 |
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| Europe maintains its presence on the final frontier |
| ESA has decided to extend the productive lives of 11 of its operating space science missions. This will enable ESA's world-class science missions to continue returning pioneering results until at least 2014. |
| Date: 22 Nov 2010 |
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| SOHO sheds new light on solar flares |
| After detailed analysis of data from the SOHO and GOES spacecraft, a team of European scientists has been able to shed new light on the role of solar flares in the total output of radiation from our nearest star. Their surprising conclusion is that X-rays account for only about 1 per cent of the total energy emitted by these explosive events. |
| Date: 12 Oct 2010 |
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| A change of pace for EIT, the ground-breaking Sun-watching camera |
| For almost 15 years, the EIT camera on board SOHO transmitted a picture of the solar corona every 12 minutes, providing ground-breaking observations of the Sun that changed our perception and understanding of our star. After a remarkable career, this instrument has now eased into semi-retirement. Although no longer as active as during its heyday, EIT will still provide snapshots of the Sun - at a more leisurely pace. |
| Date: 21 Sep 2010 |
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| ESA's new SOHO science archive now online |
| Access to data from the ESA-NASA SOHO mission has just become easier with the launch of a new SOHO science archive with enhanced capabilities for searching and visualising the vast SOHO data archive. This is the first in a new generation of science archives under development at ESA's European Space Astronomy Centre. |
| Date: 23 Nov 2009 |
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| Mission extensions approved for science missions |
| ESA's Science Programme Committee has approved the extension of mission operations for XMM-Newton, INTEGRAL, Venus Express, Mars Express and Cluster, as well as the ESA support to the operations of HST and SOHO, until 31 December 2012. An additional year of operations has been approved for Planck. |
| Date: 07 Oct 2009 |
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| SOHO confirms 36 year old solar theory |
| Data from the VIRGO instrument on SOHO have been used to show that solar flares drive global oscillations in the Sun. This confirms a prediction made more than 30 years ago. The result has implications for our understanding of flares on the Sun and on solar-like stars. |
| Date: 17 Apr 2008 |
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| Brightest Comet Ever Observed by SOHO |
| Comet C/2006 P1 (McNaught) has become the brightest comet that has been observed by the SOHO instruments since the start of routine operations in early 1996. In its own right, McNaught is the brightest comet observed in the last 40 years. |
| Date: 16 Jan 2007 |
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| Start of Next Solar Cycle? |
| The level of solar activity goes through a cycle of maxima and minima with one cycle lasting roughly 11 years. Currently the Sun is around minimum at the end of the last cycle (no. 23). The new cycle, no. 24, is due and SOHO may have observed the first sign of its arrival. |
| Date: 30 Aug 2006 |
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| SOHO Mission Extension |
| At the Science Programme Committee (SPC) meeting on 15-16 May, an extension of the SOHO mission was approved, pushing back the mission end date from April 2007 to December 2009. The new funding ensures that SOHO plays a leading part in the fleet of solar spacecraft scheduled for launch over the next few years. |
| Date: 24 May 2006 |
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| 10 Years of SOHO |
On 2 December 1995 the joint ESA-NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) was launched by an Atlas II-AS rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida, US.
SOHO was designed to answer the following three fundamental scientific questions about the Sun:
- What is the structure and dynamics of the solar interior?
- Why does the solar corona exist and how is it heated to the extremely high temperature of about 1 000 000 °C?
- Where is the solar wind produced and how is it accelerated?
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| Date: 02 Dec 2005 |
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| Solar Wind Origin in Coronal Funnels |
| A Chinese-German team of scientists have identified the magnetic structures in the solar corona where the fast solar wind originates. Using images and Doppler maps from the Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) spectrometer and magnetograms delivered by the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) on the space-based Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) of ESA and NASA, they observed solar wind flows coming from funnel-shaped magnetic fields which are anchored in the lanes of the magnetic network near the surface of the Sun. |
| Date: 22 Apr 2005 |
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| The Distortion of the Heliosphere: our Interstellar Magnetic Compass |
| Measurements by the SWAN instrument onboard SOHO, have shown that the heliosphere, the solar wind filled volume which prevents the solar system from getting embedded in the local (ambient) interstellar medium is not axi-symmetrical, but is distorted, very likely under the effect of the local galactic magnetic field. |
| Date: 14 Mar 2005 |
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| SOHO's 1000th Comet Contest |
| Although not originally designed for this purpose, SOHO has become the most prolific discoverer of comets in the history of astronomy. |
| Date: 26 Jan 2005 |
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| SOHO Keyhole Operations |
| From 26 December 2003 to 7 January 2004 the SOHO spacecraft went through a period known as a "Keyhole". For SOHO, now into its ninth year of operations, this is a relatively new event, and a direct result of the difficulties experienced with the High Gain Antenna (HGA) during the summer of 2003. |
| Date: 09 Jan 2004 |
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| SWAN observes fading sunspots on the back side of the Sun |
| The new Lyman-alpha method to monitor the activity of sunspots when they are on the far side of the Sun has been recently applied to a duo of giant sunspots number 486 and 488. The SWAN team (Jean-Loup Bertaux and Eric Quemerais) has found that their activity has decreased significantly in the last few days. |
| Date: 19 Nov 2003 |
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| Ongoing Solar Activity |
| The Sun has continued its recent high levels of activity. At 1950 UT, 4 November 2003, a class X28 solar flare was released by the Sun. The flare, which is the largest ever recorded, was picked up by the SOHO spacecraft causing instruments to saturate for several minutes. |
| Date: 05 Nov 2003 |
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| Science News Release 9-2003 |
| SOHO Resumes Full Operation |
| Date: 16 Jul 2003 |
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| Science News Release 5-2003 |
| SOHO's antenna anomaly: things are much better than expected |
| Date: 03 Jul 2003 |
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| ESA PR 42-2003 Antenna anomaly may affect SOHO scientific data transmission |
| The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft expects to experience a blackout in the transmission of its scientific data during the week of 22 June 2003. This is estimated to last for about two and a half to three weeks. |
| Date: 24 Jun 2003 |
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