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Fig. 1
The picture, acquired by the Sun-orbiting SOHO spacecraft, shows massive clouds of energetic particles bursting from the Sun. This blast occurred on 19 July 2012. The image was obtained through a special instrument that blocks the Sun, allowing to observe the fainter phenomena that take place in the Sun’s outer atmosphere (the solar corona) and its surrounding space.
Credit: SOHO (NASA&ESA)
NASA recently published an exquisite image of the Sun (Fig. 1), showing a strong eruption of giant clouds of energetic atomic particles, blasting from the Sun into space. The eruption occurred on 19 July 2012, and was captured by the SOHO spacecraft, a sophisticated observatory in orbit around the Sun. This type of solar eruptions is termed coronal mass ejection (CME), since it originates in the Sun’s tenuous extremely hot outer atmosphere, the solar corona.
The CME was associated with a strong explosion of energy in the solar corona, known as the solar flare. The SOHO spacecraft pictured the CME applying a special instrument, known as the coronagraph, which allows observing the phenomena that occur in the corona and its surrounding space, by blocking the intense glare of the Sun, with an opaque disc. In Fig. 1, this disk appears as a dark disk in image center; the Sun’s position is highlighted with a white circle.
The SOHO spacecraft is one of the most successful and most expensive space missions ever. It is a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency, ESA. It was launched in December 1995. SOHO has conducted numerous discoveries that revolutionized solar physics, the study of the Sun, and discovered over 2,000 comets, in the vicinity of the Sun, as well.
References:
SOHO Website
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
Wikipedia