where is SOHO?

It took about three months for SOHO to reach the L1 point. From this special viewpoint, SOHO is able to observe the Sun all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year, and to send back its data to Earth - SOHO never sleeps!

Here’s a simulation of SOHO’s journey to the L1 point.

Here is an animation of SOHO's orbit, but it's not to scale. Remember that SOHO's distance from Earth is only 1/100th of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

Here's an animation of SOHO's solar wings (panels of solar cells) unfolding.

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SOHO really is "hands on science"'.

Even though SOHO is 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, it can be operated in ``real-time''. Instructions (computer code and data) are sent up to SOHO from a large radio antenna on Earth.

When SOHO takes an image it can be seen on a computer screen just a few seconds later.