UK covered in snow in January 2010

It was exceptionally cold in Europe in February 2012, with temperatures in England dropping to -16°C.  That’s colder than some parts of Antarctica (well it is summer down there when it is winter in the UK!). Does this cold weather mean that global warming is a myth? No, not at all, since there is a big difference between weather and climate. The weather (rain, wind, cloud) can change locally hour by hour and day by day. The climate is the average of all these weather characteristics taken over a long period of time.

 What evidence do we have for global warming?

The evidence for global warming over the past few decades comes from several different sources:
-        the measurements of the global temperature
-        the melting of glaciers all over the world
-        the breakup of some of the ice shelves in Antarctica
-        the dramatic decrease in Arctic Ocean sea ice
-        the rise in sea level (10-25cm in the past 100 years)
-        the occurrence of extreme weather events
-        measurements of ocean heat content
-       increased understanding of the underlying physics and an ability to simulate
         global climate using computer models

Arctic Ice credit: NASA

 Does the Sun heat the Earth?

The Sun provides almost all the heat and energy we have here on Earth. However, conditions near the Earth’s surface are greatly affected by the gases in the atmosphere, in particular water vapour and carbon dioxide.  These have the affect of keeping us at a comfortable average temperature of 14°C globally. Without these particular gases in its atmosphere the Earth would be approximately 30°C cooler.

The effect created by the gases is called the ‘Greenhouse effect’, which is explained in more detail on the Sun|trek site.

However, in the past few decades, the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has increased dramatically.  By not allowing enough heat to escape from the Earth, this increase is believed to be the cause of recent global warming.

 Has the Earth’s climate changed in the past?

Drilling deep ice cores and examining the layers of gas trapped in the ice, for example in the Antarctic, allows us to monitor the climate far back in time. This gives us information about both the Earth’s temperature and the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. In the past, the temperature has varied a great deal and there have been long periods of cool temperatures called ice ages. The last ice age ended about 11,000 years ago. These ice ages are believed to be caused by periodic changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

Antarctic ice core – credit: British Antarctic Survey

Today, however, it is not so much the changes over long periods which worry everyone, but the changes seen in the last 100 years, since this coincides with the increase in industrialisation in much of the world. The 20^th  century saw a global increase in the surface temperature on Earth of 0.75°C. That may not sound very much, but computer models predict that if it continues at that rate then by the year 2050 the temperature could have increased by 2 or 3°C.  If this were to happen, more glaciers and ice shelves could melt and the sea level could rise by more than 30cm. This could have a major impact on many countries, especially low-lying countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives.

Climate change effects

 Is the Sun’s radiation constant?

 The Sun is not constant in time.  It has a cycle of activity. One way this activity can be measured is by counting the number of sunspots. Sunspots were first recorded by astronomers, such as Galileo, in the early 17^th century. They have been monitored continuously now for more than three centuries. Find out more about sunspots on the Sun|trek site.

Sunspots and the solar cycle – credit: NASA/SoHO

NEVER look at the Sun directly using a telescope or binoculars. See the Sun|trek section on How to view the Sun safely.

By monitoring the number of sunspots, it was found that the Sun has a cycle of activity lasting approximately 11 years. We are currently heading for a peak in solar activity in the next couple of years (2013/4). When the Sun is active, there are lots of sunspots and solar flares. The X-ray and ultraviolet radiation from the solar atmosphere, the corona, also becomes much stronger. The Sun is being observed daily with satellites from space, such as SoHO, Hinode and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

 Is there a correlation between solar activity and climate changes?

A plot of solar activity (sunspots) against the surface temperature of the Earth shows that there does seem to be a correlation. In particular, from 1640 until 1700 very few sunspots were observed. Indeed, during those years seeing a sunspot was cause for a great celebration!  This period is called the Maunder Minimum, and corresponded to a time of very low temperatures in Europe. Called the Little Ice Age, it was a time when rivers and lakes often froze in winter.

Sunspot number variation : Royal Observatory Belgium

 How does the Sun influence the Earth’s climate?

 The Sun can influence the Earth’s environment and climate in several ways. The total amount of radiation from the Sun reaching the Earth’s atmosphere (called the solar irradiance) varies by a very small amount (only 0.1%) with the solar cycle. However, despite this apparently very small change, historic records (see the graph below) show that the solar irradiance (blue curve) does vary in a manner which seems to correlate with temperature variations on the Earth’s surface (red curve).

Variation in so lar activity (Max Planck Institute) and the Earth's temperature (NASA)

 Could the recent temperature increases be caused by the Sun?

 Recent global warming, the sharp rise in the Earth’s surface temperature over the past 30 years, cannot be explained by the Sun’s influence. The solar irradiance, although varying with the solar cycle over the past 30 years, has not increased dramatically in the same way that temperatures have. 

 Are there any processes going on which we don’t yet understand?

 Scientists do not yet fully understand the ways in which the Sun might affect the Earth’s climate. Increases in X-ray and ultraviolet radiation, or energetic particles (so-called cosmic rays) from the Sun, might change the chemical composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and so might change the rate or efficiency of cloud formation. Also, the solar wind can prevent the cosmic rays penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere.

Change in X-ray emission over the solar cycle

 It is part of the normal process of scientific investigation to debate ideas and to propose theories and possible explanations for the data that are recorded.  There are uncertainties in any climate measurements and the computer models used to forecast the climate may not include all the physical effects present in the real atmosphere, but climate scientists make allowance for these shortcomings when they record and interpret the data.

Did sunspots sink the Titanic?

April 15th 2012 is the 100 year anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, when it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. There is a correlation between the sea surface temperature and sunspots. The iceberg landscape in 1912 was indeed extreme. Find out more on the Sun|trek on the Sun and climate  section(http://www.suntrek.org/earth-beyond/earths-energy-resources/sun-climate.shtml).

credit: tiki.oneworld.net

The Sun does influence the Earth’s climate, but the vast majority of scientists are convinced that recent ‘global warming’ is man-made and is due to the increase in the amount of ‘greenhouse gases’ in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Hazel Bain

The Sun has recently been getting very active again, and there have been several X-class solar flares.  The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) is one of NASA’s Small Explorer missions (SMEX) and was launched in February 2002.  It is still working after a decade and has now observed over 40,000 solar flares. RHESSI was designed to look at X-rays and Gamma rays which are emitted during solar flares. 

The astronomy group at Glasgow University is part of the RHESSI team. After studying at Glasgow University, I had the opportunity to work at the University of California, Berkeley. My friend Claire Raftery, who studied at Trinity College, Dublin, also works here with me. We enjoy working at Berkeley very much.

How much energy is released during a solar flare?

UK standard Mars bar

During a solar flare a HUGE amount of energy is released. The energy in one UK standard Mars bar (58g) is 260 kcal, that is just over 1000 kJ (unfortunately in 2008 it shrank in size from 62.5g). Note that the USA equivalent is called a Milky Way bar. This sounds like a lot of energy. Indeed, it is a lot of energy, about 1000 times the amount of energy from solar radiation falling on one square metre of the Earth’s atmosphere every second (1.36 kJ per second).  

The energy released in a solar flare can be as high as 10²⁵ Joules, that is the equivalent of roughly 10 billion billion Mars bars!

How can RHESSI help us understand solar flares better?

YOHKOH – Solar flare

Scientists think that the massive explosion (solar flare) is caused by ‘magnetic reconnection’ high in the Sun’s corona. The magnetic energy transfers into kinetic and thermal energy.  Lots and lots of particles (mainly electrons, but also protons and heavy nuclei) are accelerated to very high speeds, a fraction of the speed of light. Many of these electrons zoom downwards into lower parts of the Sun’s atmosphere. At first they have no problem racing down through the solar atmosphere but as they get deeper, the atmosphere gets denser. Eventually they hit the chromosphere, which is too dense for them to pass through and they get stopped. This is a little bit like a game of rugby. If the person with the ball is running for the try line and there are only a few defenders it’s not easy to stop them. However, if there are loads of defenders then the player can’t get past them.

When the electrons get stopped, X-rays are emitted. The place where this happens in the chromosphere is called a footpoint, you’ll see why in a minute. Another thing that happens when the electrons get stopped is that the gas (plasma) in the surrounding area gets heated up. The hot plasma (which can be 10 to 20 Million degrees Celsius) then rises, just as hot air rises on Earth, and forms a hot loop connecting the footpoints. The hot plasma, being ionised, traces out the magnetic field, hence the loop shapes. Now you can see where footpoints get their name, they are the ‘feet’ of the hot loops.

RHESSI – solar flare

RHESSI helps us to see the X-rays emitted from the footpoints and from the loop. By studying these parts of the flare we can learn a lot about what happens to the electrons during the flare. That is how the magnetic energy is released and transported in a solar flare. Observations from RHESSI can be combined with those from other solar observatories, such as Hinode and SDO, to obtain the maximum amount of information.

Here is a YouTube video of a solar flare seen with TRACE in UV emission on April 21st, 2002. Superimposed are the contours of X-ray emission as seen by RHESSI. The blue contours show more energetic (hard) X-ray emission and the red contours show (soft) X-rays from plasma at 10-20 million degrees.  

More information about solar flares can be found on the Sun|trek website (http://www.suntrek.org/magnetic-sun/solar-flares/what-are-solar-flares.shtml).

See also the NASA RHESSI webpages (http://hesperia.gsfc.nasa.gov/hessi/)

On Wednesday 6 June 2012 the planet Venus will make a rare passage in front of the Sun as seen from Earth. Venus and Mercury are the only two planets that orbit closer to the Sun than we do and both planets occasionally pass in front of, or transit the Sun’s disc. During a transit Venus appears in silhouette as a dramatic black disc in front of the Sun’s brilliant gaseous ‘surface’ (known as the photosphere). Venus is almost as large as Earth and during a transit is at its closest to us, so it has an angular diameter of approximately 1 arc minute, compared to 30 arc minutes or half a degree for the Sun.

In the photo above, Venus is about to leave the Sun’s disc during the 2004 transit. This photo was taken from France by Lee Macdonald on 2004 June 8th using a Canon 300D DSLR camera attached to a Meade 90 mm ETX Maksutov telescope equipped with a full-aperture solar filter.  (The grey spots on the image are caused by dust on the camera’s image sensor.)

Previous Transits of Venus

Jeremiah Horrocks observing the Transit of Venus

Transits of Venus are extremely rare events.  They occur in pairs 8 years apart separated by more than a century.  The most recent transit occurred in 2004, but the last pair before that occurred in 1874 and 1882 – when Queen Victoria was on the British throne!  The first transit of Venus to be observed took place in 1639; it was observed by Jeremiah Horrocks and William Crabtree from the north-west of England after having been predicted by Horrocks. 

This year’s transit is the second of the current pair and the next will not occur until 2117.  If you missed the transit in 2004, this year’s event will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

In the past, transits of Venus had great scientific value as during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries astronomers used timings of the ingress and egress (entry and exit) to and from the Sun’s disc made from different locations on Earth to determine the distance to the Sun using the geometric effect of parallax.  Once astronomers knew the distance from the Earth to the Sun, known as the Astronomical Unit, they could use Kepler’s and Newton’s laws to determine the distances to all the other known planets and thus determine the size of the Solar System

 Where is the best place to see the Transit of Venus?

Transits of Venus remain fascinating to watch and this year’s should be no exception.  Unfortunately, the 2012 transit is not well placed for viewing from Britain.  As seen from London in the south of the UK, the Sun rises at 04:45 BST on 6 June, little more than an hour before Venus leaves the solar disc at 05:55 BST.  From Edinburgh in the north, sunrise is at 04:31 BST and so across the UK we will be able to see at most the last hour and a half of the transit.  To see the event in its entirety would mean a trip to the Far East.  To observe the transit from the UK, you will need a site with a clear horizon to the north-east, as the Sun will be very low throughout what is left of the transit.

Transit of Venus 2012 (courtesy of Fred Espenak, NASA)

The Transit of Venus should be seen really well in other parts of the world, for example in Eastern Australia and New Zealand. The British explorer, Captain Cook, sailed on the Endeavour to observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769. He then went on to circumnavigate New Zealand and find the ‘terra australis incognito’, Australia.

Replica of the Endeavour, Queenstown (photo credit: John Hill)

 Safe observations of the Sun with small telescopes

H-alpha solar telescope (at Glastonbury Festival)

 If you are trying to observe the transit, NEVER look directly at the Sun with a telescope or binoculars.  The only really safe way to observe solar events is to project the Sun’s image onto a piece of white paper or card held 30 centimetres (12 inches) or more behind the eyepiece.

 There is a section on the Sun|trek site to provide a guide to amateur astronomers who want to observe the Sun and also to teachers who would like to carry out some solar astronomy at school (see: http://www.suntrek.org/classroom-resources/observing-the-Sun-safely.shtml).

 For further information, see also:-

 Macdonald, Lee, How to Observe the Sun Safely (Springer, 2003).  (A second edition is due to appear from the same publisher later in 2012.)

 Macdonald, Peter, ‘The transit of Venus, 2012 June 5-6’, Journal of the British Astronomical Association, Vol. 121, No. 3, 2011 June, pp. 135-42.

January 2012 provided a spectacular display of lights (aurorae) in the northern skies.  

Northern lights in Norway

Pål Brekke tells us about his experience in Norway. ‘It is truly amazing to experience the aurora. Actually you get excited each time – and it is one of nature’s great wonders. I like to quote the well-known Austrian explorer, Julius von Payer, who said: ”No pencil can draw it, no colours can paint it, and no words can describe it in all its magnificence.” It is so true – it is hard to explain to anyone who has not seen the aurora. You can see strong green arcs, or curtains, with some purple areas dancing on the sky.’

Aurora in Norway – photo taken by Pål Brekke

‘On the 23rd of January the Sun unleashed a solar flare with a Coronal Mass Ejection, CME, which was directed right at the Earth. Thus it was expected that this CME would generate a geomagnetic storm and spark strong northern lights. I was very lucky to be at a meeting in Tromsø, the far north of Norway, during this time. Fortunately, I took my camera and a new light sensitive lens with me. What a show I experienced. On the 24^th January I witnessed the most amazing aurora I have ever seen and I managed to take some great photos.’

Solar flare seen by SDO on 23rd January 2012

This beautiful flare was seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, SDO, satellite on 23^rd January 2012. The Chinese New Year certainly started with a bang!

Pål continues ‘What is probably most amazing is how fast the aurora changes shapes and colour. The entire structure can move across the sky quite rapidly and waves can ripple through it. Truly amazing and an experience of a lifetime.’

The Sun is now approaching solarmax (2013), a time of maximum activity, so there should be plenty of opportunities to see the aurora in the next few years. To forecast the aurora you need to keep an eye on the Sun as observed from satellites like SOHO, Hinode or SDO (see the Sun|trek website for more information about these solar satellites). Also check out the space weather sites, such as www.spaceweather.com  and Aurora Watch UK, which send out alerts. In addition, there are a few forecasting systems out there that will tell you where the aurora oval is located at any time. The University of Svalbard has developed an online version, as well as a free Android Application (http://kho.unis.no/Forecast.htm).

Pal Brekke

If you want to read more about the Sun, Pål’s new book “Our Explosive Sun – A Visual Feast of Our Source of Light and Life” has just been published.  Pål Brekke is a solar scientist and senior adviser for space science coordination at the Norwegian Space Center. He is the former ESA Deputy Project Scientist for Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. 

 Northern Lights in Scotland

The northern lights were also seen in Scotland and the north of England.

Lucie Green, one of our Sun|trek solar guides, talks about the northern lights in this interview, and also the more problematic effects of space weather. See: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16702235

Lucie Green

What causes the aurora?
The aurora is caused by explosions on the Sun (solar flares). Huge amounts of material (coronal mass ejections) can shoot out into space, and sometimes head towards the Earth. When they hit the Earth’s environment, energetic particles can excite molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere, mainly in the polar regions (Arctic and Antarctic). When the molecules are excited they can emit light in different colours  (red and green light from oxygen and blue from nitrogen). These beautiful lights in the night sky are a sign of solar activity.

To find out more about the aurora see the main Sun|trek website.

Arctic Photo by Bjørn Jørgensen

C. Alex Young

Ryan Milligan

The Sun Today facebooksite (http://www.facebook.com/thesuntoday) is full of interesting facts and figures about the Sun. It is produced by a young,dynamic duo: C. Alex Young and Ryan Milligan.

Find out more about Ryan here:

by Pål Brekke

A new popular science book about the Sun written by Pål Brekke has just been  released by Springer.  The book examines the many ways that the Sun impacts our world, including the beautiful northern and southern lights, and how greatly the Sun affects our technology-based society. The book includes a lot of animations and a PowerPoint version of the book for teachers. The book will also be available as eBook and Kindle versions.

More Information About the Book from the Back Cover

The center of our Solar System is a star, one among billions of stars in our own galaxy. This star, which we call the Sun, gives rise to all life on Earth, is the driver of the photosynthesis in plants, and is the source of all food, energy, and fossil fuels on Earth. For us humans, the Sun as seen with the naked eye appears as a static and quiet yellow disk in the sky. However, it is in fact a stormy and variable star and contributes much more than only light and heat. It is the source of the beautiful northern and southern lights and can affect our technology-based society in many ways. The Sun is, like astronomy in general, a good entrance to natural science, since it affects us in so many ways and connects us to many other fields of science, such as physics, chemistry, biology, and meteorology. The book includes additional material on Springer Extras, a large number of animations and video material. A PowerPoint presentation of the book is also included there as a useful resource for teachers.

More Information About the Author

Pal Brekke

Pål Brekke is a Norwegian solar physicist with a doctorate from the University of Oslo in astrophysics and is now a senior advisor for the Norwegian Space Centre . He has worked with state-of-art space-based solar telescopes since 1985 and has published many academic papers, including more than 30 popular science articles. Pål wrote much of this material while working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Maryland, USA, as the Deputy Project Scientist for the SOHO mission.

Peter Gallagher
15 Dec 2011

X-ray image of the Sun

There is no need to download an app, just point your mobile/cell phone browser to www.SolarMonitor.org and it doesn’t matter if you are on an Android or an iPhone. Users can try it out for themselves by going to www.solarmonitor.org or m.solarmonitor.org.

Here’s a demo of the app

To find out more about SOHO, STEREO, Hinode and SDO, see the main Sun|trek website (www.suntrek.org). Peter Gallagher is one of the Sun|trek solar guides (http://www.suntrek.org/solar-guides/solar-guides.shtml).

SDO Mission Overview

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a satellite that was launched into orbit in February 2010.

SDO is a NASA mission to study many aspects of the Sun and its effect on the Earth and solar system. It is part of NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) program which aims to look at how the Sun affects life and society on Earth. For example, now that the Sun is becoming much more active again, with X-class  solar flares, there are concerns over how this will affect modern technology, such as the many satellites (e.g. GPS) that orbit the Earth.

Large solar flares from the Sun have damaged and even destroyed satellites in the past, which is a real concern for our technology dependent society. Understanding the causes of solar flares and improving our ability to predict them is one of the goals which SDO will help us to achieve.

The Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) image of the Sun shown above was taken by SDO on 30th March 2010 and shows gas at different temperatures (red is 60,000 °C; blues and greens are about 1,000,000 °C). Several active regions can be seen with large loops of hot gas tracing out the Sun’s magnetic field. On the solar limb (at the 10 o’clock position) is a huge explosion with gas and twisted magnetic fields reaching high above the solar surface.

Solar physicists around the world are really excited about SDO because of the extremely high spatial resolution it provides (that is the amount of detail we can see on the Sun). SDO takes a full-disk image of the Sun in 8 different wavelength bands (sensitive to different temperatures) every 10 seconds with a spatial resolution of 4096 x 4096 pixels (that is an IMAX cinema quality in terms of clarity and sharpness).

Two images of the same active region: the left hand image is from SoHO/EIT and the right hand side is from SDO/AIA. CREDIT: NASA/Caroline Alexander

These two images show the same solar active region imaged with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the SoHO satellite (left), compared to an image taken with SDO/AIA (right). The loops in these images are around one million degrees Celsius. You can see that the SDO/AIA image is much clearer and shows the loop detail much better than the SOHO/EIT image. This is because SoHO was launched in 1995 and since then imaging technology has come on in leaps and bounds.

A downside of this fantastic amount of detail is that the images which the satellite beams back are really large.  The enormous amount of data that SDO sends down is equivalent to downloading half a million iTunes songs a day!  This has presented a new challenge for solar scientists. Storing and distributing  so much solar data had never been done before.

SDO Launch and Orbit

SDO blasting off! Image credit NASA/Sandra Joseph and Tony Gray

The SDO satellite was successfully launched on the 11th of February 2010 from Cape Canaveral in Florida after being delayed for a day due to fears over high winds.

The rocket flight went perfectly with the AtlasV launch vehicle pushing the spacecraft up to an orbit of 22,300 miles above Earth where SDO separated and began moving into its final geosynchronous orbit.

Watch the movie of the SDO launch below.

SDO takes so many images that it needs to send back data continuously. This is why it is in a geosynchronous orbit. This type of orbit means that it stays over the same area on Earth so it can beam its images straight down without having to store them for long periods of time. To cope with this enormous amount of data, NASA built two dedicated radio antennae near Las Cruces in New Mexico to keep the SDO satellite in constant view of the 18 m dishes.

The SDO satellite with the solar arrays folded down about to be put into the upper casing of the rocket. Image credit Ben Cooper/Spacefight Now

Instruments on SDO

SDO satellite with the 3 instruments highlighted. Credit NASA

SDO has three instruments:
• AIA – The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly
• HMI – Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager
• EVE – Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment

• The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) takes high resolution (very detailed) images of the solar atmosphere in different wavebands, characteristic of different temperatures. It takes an image in each waveband every 10 seconds which allows us to see the very fast moving features in the solar atmosphere.

• The Heliospheric and Magnetic Imager (HMI) maps the Sun’s magnetic field in detail, and also probes beneath the surface using sophisticated techniques of Helioseismology. This instrument allows us to see what the magnetic field is doing on the solar surface which allows us to see how the surface and upper atmosphere are connected.

• The Extreme UV Experiment (EVE) measures fluctuations in the Sun’s radiation. These data will lead to a better understanding of how the Sun’s UV radiation interacts with the Earth’s atmosphere, affecting its chemistry and the Earth’s climate.

SDO: Prominence Eruption

SDO Science

SDO Factfile

SDO was launched in order to find out more about the Sun. In particular it will try to find answers to some of these science questions:

1. What drives the 11 year solar cycle?
2. How do active regions form?
3. How does the magnetic field on the Sun reorganise itself?
4. How does the Sun’s irradiance change over the solar cycle?
5. What can we learn about Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s) and prominences by studying the magnetic field?
6. Can we predict what the solar wind at Earth will be like based on what we see on the solar surface?
7. Can we predict space weather and how it will affect us?

SDO observations will also be combined with those from other solar spacecraft, Hinode, STEREO, RHESSI, TRACE and SoHO to study the Sun, sunspots, solar flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s) and how the Sun affects the Earth, for example by disrupting communication and navigation (GPS). Learn more about the solar satellites and observations on the Sun|trek website.

This movie (credit: Dan Brown, UCLan) shows the Sun observed by SDO/AIA in 10 wavebands. Each waveband represents a different temperature. The movie shows data for a whole month and you can see the active regions moving as the Sun spins around.

This other movie (credit: Dan Brown, UCLan) shows an erupting prominence seen by SDO. The three boxes on the left show  close ups at three different wavebands to show what the prominence material is doing at different temperatures.

Learn more about SDO

For more information on SDO visit the NASA website at http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

If Twitter is more your thing then you might want to follow @NASA_SDO  mission updates and news.

SDO facebook

Little SDO is a Facebook page where you can get  the latest news and images from the satellite.

sdo camilla

Also check out Camilla SDO on Facebook. This rubber chicken is the mascot for the SDO mission and her page is geared more towards kids and outreach activities. As well as learning about the Sun through SDO, she regularly posts about other NASA topics such as learning to become an astronaut. Also follow Camilla tweeting away on  @CamillaSDO for regular mission updates and news.

SDO UCLAN

The University of Central Lancashire is the UK data hub for SDO data.
Follow them on Facebook (SDO at UCLan) or visit http://www.sdo.uclan.ac.uk/ for news and cool pictures.

Caroline Alexander

Caroline Alexander

Caroline is a graduate student at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), UK.  She grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was fascinated by astronomy. She now works with the SDO team, analysing solar data and trying to understand more about the Sun. Find out more about Caroline and other Solar Guides on the Sun|trek website.

JHelioviewer is new visualisation software that enables everyone to explore the Sun. Developed as part of the ESA/NASA Helioviewer Project, it provides a desktop program that enables users to call up images of the Sun from the past 15 years.

More than a million images from SOHO can already be accessed, and new images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory are being added every day. The downloadable JHelioviewer is complemented by the website Helioviewer.org, a web-based image browser.

Find out more at: http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMYTMRRJHG_index_0.html where you can download the viewer and begin exploring the Sun. 

Find out more about SOHO on the Sun|trek website.

This DVD is a resource for secondary school teachers who provide career guidance for students (aged 11-18 years old). The goal is to introduce students, particularly those who might be interested in technical careers, to the diversity of career opportunities at NASA and in the space industry.

The DVD embeds career awareness in video clips that document the construction of an X-ray telescope that was launched into Earth orbit on the Hinode satellite on September 23, 2006. The resource provides students with a unique window into the workplace and an unscripted view of workers collaborating and solving problems as they attend to their specialties.

To find out more and to order a copy of the DVD, please go to: http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/outreach/dvd/.

Hinode is a Japanese mission developed and launched by ISAS/JAXA, with NAOJ as domestic partner and NASA and STFC (UK) as international partners. It is operated by these agencies in co-operation with ESA and the NSC (Norway).

Find out more about Hinode on the Sun|trek website