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    SOHO tagged posts

    Asteroid’s Comet-like Tail Is Not made of Dust, solar observatories reveal

    April 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) imaged asteroid Phaethon through different filters as the asteroid passed near the Sun in May 2022. On the left, the sodium-sensitive orange filter shows the asteroid with a surrounding cloud and small tail, suggesting that sodium atoms from the asteroid’s surface are glowing in response to sunlight. On the right, the dust-sensitive blue filter shows no sign of Phaethon, indicating that the asteroid is not producing any detectable dust.
    Credits: ESA/NASA/Qicheng Zhang

    A weird asteroid has just gotten a little weirder.

    We have known for a while that asteroid 3200 Phaethon acts like a comet...

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    Return of the comet: 96P spotted by ESA, NASA satellites

    November 4, 2017, Categories  Uncategorized

    The comet entered the bottom of STEREO's view and crossed it diagonally before leaving on Oct. 28. Most of the corona has been suppressed in order to bring out the comet, leaving only the dynamic flow of the solar wind. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/STEREO/Bill Thompson/Joy Ng

    The comet entered the bottom of STEREO’s view and crossed it diagonally before leaving on Oct. 28. Most of the corona has been suppressed in order to bring out the comet, leaving only the dynamic flow of the solar wind. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/STEREO/Bill Thompson/Joy Ng

    ESA and NASA mission SOHO – Solar and Heliospheric Observatory – got a visit from an old friend this week when comet 96P entered its field of view on Oct. 25, 2017. The comet entered the lower right corner of SOHO’s view, and skirted up and around the right edge before leaving on Oct. 30. SOHO also spotted comet 96P in 1996, 2002, 2007 and 2012, making it the spacecraft’s most frequent cometary visitor.

    At the same time, comet 96P passed through a second NASA mission’s view: STEREO – Solar and Terrestria...

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    Space Weather Model Simulates Solar Storms from Nowhere

    May 9, 2017, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Watch the evolution of a stealth CME in this simulation. Differential rotation creates a twisted mass of magnetic fields on the sun, which then pinches off and speeds out into space. The image of the sun is from NASA's STEREO. Colored lines depict magnetic field lines, and the different colors indicate in which layers of the sun's atmosphere they originate. The white lines become stressed and form a coil, eventually erupting from the sun. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/ARMS/Joy Ng, producer

    Watch the evolution of a stealth CME in this simulation. Differential rotation creates a twisted mass of magnetic fields on the sun, which then pinches off and speeds out into space. The image of the sun is from NASA’s STEREO. Colored lines depict magnetic field lines, and the different colors indicate in which layers of the sun’s atmosphere they originate. The white lines become stressed and form a coil, eventually erupting from the sun. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/ARMS/Joy Ng, producer

    A kind of solar storm has puzzled scientists for its lack of typical warning signs: They seem to come from nowhere, and scientists call them stealth CMEs. Now, scientists have developed a model simulating their evolution...

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