Solar Observatory SDO «opened a new optical phenomenon in the world Specialists in atmospheric optics Les Cowley (Les Cowley) and Robert Grinler (Robert Greenler) decoded data obtained at the start fromour solar observatory NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
SDO was launched on February 11 last year, and two months later the researchers presented its instruments made test shots of the sun. Not related to the physics luminaries useful information unit, as it turns out, he began to collect much earlier.
Spectators gathered near the launch site at Cape Canaveral, was lucky to remove the video not only the successful launch of the carrier rocket Atlas V, which put SDO into space, but also a relatively rare atmospheric phenomenon - a mock sun (sun dog). The latter is considered a type of halo, usually seen on the left and right of the morning sun and is formed by the refraction of light in cirrus clouds - in flat hexagonal ice crystals floating in the atmosphere. The most interesting thing, however, happened a few seconds after liftoff when the rocket rose into the sky: the shock waves have broken the location of crystals and sun dog disappeared.
| The destruction of the rainbow Parghelia (see the right side of the Atlas V) and the formation of a vertical white band (illustrations George C. Privon, NASA). |
Destruction Parghelia researchers explained quickly, but a different effect on modeling the impact of shock waves, they had to work hard. Next to Atlas V appeared bright white vertical band that accompanied the rocket, - says Mr. Cowley. - Nothing of the sort we have not seen before.
The desired result is given a non-trivial model in which the axis of the crystals is rejected by 8-12 degrees from vertical, and they precess like a top. Calculations showed that the observed band - a unique rocket look halo - was only part of a much larger oval that would appear in the sky, in the ideal case.
Video of the start of SDO. Meeting with sun dog and its destruction occur at the end of the second minute:
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NASA | Solar Dynamics Observatory: 1st Year Anniversary Collection
April 21, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) First Light press conference, where NASA revealed the first images taken by the spacecraft.
In the last year, the sun has gone from its quietest period in years to the activity marking the beginning of solar cycle 24. SDO has captured every moment with a level of detail never-before possible. The mission has returned unprecedented images of solar flares, eruptions of prominences, and the early stages of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In this video are some of the most beautiful, interesting, and mesmerizing events seen by SDO during its first year.
In the order they appear in the video the events are:
1. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on March 30, 2010
2. Cusp Flow from AIA in 171 Angstroms on February 14, 2011
3. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 25, 2011
4. Cusp Flow from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 14, 2011
5. Merging Sunspots from HMI in Continuum on October 24-28, 2010
6. Prominence Eruption and active region from AIA in 304 Angstroms on April 30, 2010
7. Solar activity and plasma loops from AIA in 171 Angstroms on March 4-8, 2011
8. Flowing plasma from AIA in 304 Angstroms on April 19, 2010
9. Active regions from HMI in Magnetogram on March 10, 2011
10. Filament eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on December 6, 2010
11. CME start from AIA in 211 Angstroms on March 8, 2011
12. X2 flare from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 15, 2011
