Triple Play (July 26, 2007)

While it may look otherworldly, this is still just the Sun and its environs as seen from SOHO (July 24, 2007). By combining these three views onto one image we can try to suggest SOHO's expansive capacity to see the Sun itself and activity in its corona (the area around it) at virtually the same time. This composite image blends the Sun itself in extreme UV light (from EIT at 304 Angstroms) with the smaller expanse around it as seen from the LASCO C2 coronagraph), and the much larger view (from the LASCO C3 coronagraph), whose field of view is 30 solar radii. The Sun has been enlarged about 50% to cover the C2 occulting disk and we adjusted the color tables of the instruments to give it a unifying, single tone. While no solar storms were erupting, you can easily follow the structure of streamers extending out of the Sun in several directions.

SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display.

If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov.