Explanation:
What does a solar prominence look like in three dimensions?
To help find out, NASA
launched the
STEREO satellites to keep a steady eye on the Sun from two different vantage points.
The STEREO satellites orbit the Sun nearly along Earth's orbit, but one (dubbed Ahead) currently leads the Earth, while the other (dubbed Behind) currently trails.
Three weeks ago, a powerful prominence
erupted and remained above the Sun for about 30 hours, allowing the
STEREO satellites to get numerous views of the prominence from different angles.
Pictured above is a high-resolution image of
the event from the STEREO Ahead satellite.
A video of the
prominence erupting
as seen from both spacecraft can be found
here.
The unusually quiet nature of the Sun over the past two years has made large prominences like this relatively rare.
The combined
perspective of STEREO
will help astronomers better understand the mechanisms for the creation and evolution of prominences,
coronal mass ejections, and
flares.
digg_url = 'http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap091020.html'; digg_skin = 'compact';
