wiki Word: SOHO (SOlar Heiliospheric Observatory)

Definition: Launched by the ESA (European Space Agency), the SOHO is an observatory satellite that is currently orbiting the Sun at about 148.1 thousand kilometers. Its current objectives are to obtain all relative information about the Sun possible until December 2009, when the mission is predicted to end.

The discoveries the SOHO has made are:

  • The discovery of complex currents of gas flowing beneath the visible surface of the Sun, and 
  • The observing of rapid changes in the pattern of magnetic fields around the Sun
  • It has also made the largest and most detailed database of solar surface features

 

Also, though not designed for the purpose, the SOHO has become the most prolific discoverer of comets in the history of astronomy.

 

Stats:

  • Mass: total at launch 1850 kg payload 610 kg
  • Dimensions: breadth and width: 3.65 x 3.65 m, span with solar array deployed 9.5 m
  • Launcher: Atlas-IIAS
  • Mission lifetime: SOHO was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Station on 2 December 1995, 08:08 UT, and was designed to observe the Sun continuously for at least two years, but is still observing!

 

 

Instruments On-Board the SOHO and Their Providers

 

CDS Coronal Diagnostics Spectrometer Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, United Kingdom
CELIAS Charge, ELement, and Isotope Analysis System Universität Bern, Switzerland
COSTEP COmprehensive SupraThermal and Energetic Particle Analyzer University of Kiel, Germany
EIT

Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, USA

ERNE Energetic and Relativistic Nuclei and Electron experiment University of Turku, Finland
GOLF Global Oscillations at Low Frequencies Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, France
LASCO Large Angle and Spectrometric COronagraph Naval Research Laboratory, USA
MDI/SOI Michelson Doppler Imager/Solar Oscillations Investigation Stanford University, USA
SUMER Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, Germany
SWAN Solar Wind ANisotropies FMI, Finland, Service d'Aeronomie, France
UVCS UltraViolet Coronagraph Spectrometer Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, US
VIRGO Variability of Solar IRradiance and Gravity Oscillations from ESTEC, The Netherlands

 

 SOHO Communications

SOHO is commanded from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Greenbelt, Maryland. Its data is retrieved via the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN).

 

 

 

 

 

 

1) A Normal picture of the Sun, 2) A graph of sunquakes the SOHO recorded, 3) An extreme ultra-violet image of the Sun and how the ultra-violet output changes over time.

This mission is very important because it helps all kinds of astronomers studying everything from the Sun itself to the comets of the Oort cloud. It has discovered many new previously unknown features of the Sun, along with many detailed photographs of the face of the Sun with almost all kinds of lenses and types of photographs, such as magnetic and infrared images.

 

 

 

"SOHO." 2008. European Space Agency. 28 Apr 2008 <http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/area/index.cfm?fareaid=14>.

satellite Wiki Page 

 

Pasachoff, Jay Ph. D. Astronomy- Prentice Hall Science Explorer. Boston, MA: Prentice Hall, 2005

 


10 Years Of SOHO - video powered by Metacafe

Orginal Author: 

 Name (First Name and Last Initial) Class Period
 Thomas H.  4

 

Status:

 Date Status                  
 04/28  started
 04/29  completed
   

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