NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

New Solar Cycle Sunspot

Image credit: SOHO Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope, NASA/ESA After many weeks of a blank sun with no sunspots and very few sunspots this year overall, a small new sunspot emerged Sept. 23, 2008. This new spot has both the magnetic orientation and the high-latitude position of a sunspot belonging to the new solar cycle, Cycle 24.

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SOHO Mission
The SOHO (Solar & Heliospheric Observatory) project is a cooperative effort between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. SOHO was designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System.

SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995. The SOHO spacecraft was built in Europe by an industry team led by Matra, and instruments were provided by European and American scientists. NASA was responsible for the launch and is now responsible for mission operations. Large radio dishes around the world which form NASA's Deep Space Network are used to track the spacecraft beyond the Earth's orbit. Mission control is based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.