 |  | | | | STEREO Telecon Multimedia Page
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03.01.07
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Presenter #1 - Mike Kaiser, STEREO Project Scientist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
 
Click images to view animations
Image #1 (left): Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), associated giant clouds of plasma in space, are the largest explosions in the solar system. They are caused by the buildup and sudden release of magnetic stress in the solar atmosphere above the giant magnetic poles we see as sunspots. CMEs can cause magnetic storms affecting communication systems, power grids and astronauts in space. Click on image to view movie. Credit: NASA. Image #2 (right):The Solar and Heliopsheric Observatory (SOHO) watched CMEs streaming out into space during the notorious Halloween storms in October/November 2003. Click on the above image to play small movie (mpg) or view 640x480 version. Credit: NASA/ESA.
Presenter #2 - Ed Reynolds, STEREO Project Manager, JHU-APL
Images #3 and #4: Left: Orbital view of STEREO's "B" observatory with instruments labeled. Right: Artist's concept depicting STEREO spacecraft panels being deployed shortly after launch. + Higher resolution left image + High resolution right image Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Image #5: The twin observatories are operated for NASA from STEREO's Mission Operations Center located at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), in Laurel, Md. Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
+ High resolution image Credit: NASA/JHU Applied Physics Lab
Click image to view animation
Image/animation #6: This graphic and animation depict the highly elliptical phasing orbits used to position the twin STEREO observatories into their final heliocentric orbits where they'll capture the first-ever 3-D images of the sun. Both spacecraft completed four orbits - labeled A1 to A4 - while awaiting the proper position of the moon needed to complete their lunar swingby maneuvers. Click image to view animation On Dec. 15, 2006, the twin spacecraft encountered the moon (S1) and completed the mission's first lunar swingby. The "A" spacecraft passed only 7,340 km (approx. 4,550 miles) from the moon's surface; then lunar gravity was used to hurl the spacecraft away from Earth, placing the observatory slightly "ahead" of Earth.
During the initial lunar gravitational assist, the "B" spacecraft flew higher above the moon at a distance of 11,776 km (approx. 7,300 miles) above the moon's surface where the lunar gravity was slightly weaker. Although the moon's gravity slightly boosted the "B" observatory's orbit, the spacecraft re-encountered the moon on Jan. 21, 2007, at S2. The "B" spacecraft came within 8,818 km (approx. 5,468 miles) from the moon's surface, swinging past the lunar body in the opposite direction of the "A" spacecraft and into an orbit "behind" Earth. + High resolution image Credit: Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Presenter #3 - Russ Howard, SECCHI Principal Investigator, Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
  
Images #7, #8, and #9 above (left to right): The sun's million degree atmosphere (shown in blue) taken on December 4 by STEREO's SECCHI/EUVI telescope. The sun in light emitted at 1.5 million degrees C (shown in green) taken on December 4 by STEREO's SECCHI/EUVI telescope. An image showing portions of the sun's atmosphere at 60,000 to 80,000 C (shown in orange) taken on December 4 by STEREO's SECCHI/EUVI telescope.Click images to enlarge. + Hi res (blue) + Hi res (green) + Hi res (red) Credit: NASA/NRL
Click image to view animation
Image/animation #10: Please click on image to view animation (22 Mb -- no audio). Credit: NASA/NRL
Since this is a large video, the following streaming options are offered:
+ Panorama video in Windows Media Viewer
+ Panorama video in Real Media viewer
Stills from this animation can be found below.
+ High Resolution image
Image #11: A close up of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light taken by STEREO's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI). Featured are magnetic loops filled with million degree Celsius material. Credit: NASA/NRL
+ High resolution image
Image #12: The inner portion of the Sun's million degree corona: In blue we see an image of extreme ultraviolet light taken by STEREO's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI). Along the outside in gray-scale is an image of the Sun's visible light corona taken by the Cor1 coronagraph. Credit: NASA/NRL
+ High resolution image
Image #13: In addition to the sun in extreme ultraviolet at the center, this image also shows the sun's corona in visible light as seen by STEREO's Cor1 and Cor2 coronagraphs. Between them the two coronagraphs cover a range from 1.4 to 15 times the radius of the Sun. Credit: NASA/NRL
+ High resolution image
Image #14: Here we have the ultraviolet sun (blue at center) and coronagraph images of the Sun's visible corona out to 15 times the solar radius. Credit: NASA/NRL Credit: NASA/NRL
+ High resolution image
Image #15: Data from the inner Heliospheric Imager (HI1, at left). HI1 extends the view from the area close to the sun, still shown at the right, out to about a third of the distance to Earth's orbit. The vertical white line through the image is due to the plant Venus which is too bright for the HI detectors, designed for observations of the very faint signs of coronal mass ejections so far from the sun. Credit: NASA/NRL
+ High resolution image
Image #16: The complete view from the sun to the orbit of Earth taken by the STEREO-A spacecraft in late December of 2006. Here we see the entire STEREO panorama including data from all five imagers in STEREO's SECCHI imaging suite - from the left to right: the Heliospheric Imager 2 (HI2) which extends STEREO's view all the way out to the orbit of the Earth, HI1, the Cor2 and Cor1 coronagraphs, and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI) which shows the solar disk. The coronagraphs at the right emphasize the sun's electron corona. The views shown from the Heliospheric Imagers are dominated by solar system dust which causes the zodiacal light (visible from dark locations on Earth). Also clear in this image are many stars and even the dust of the Milky Way (upper right in the HI2 field of view). Credit: NASA/NRL
Click image to view animation
Image/animation #17: STEREO Panorama CME movie: The video shows two Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) moving through STEREO's Sun-Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) suite of telescopes on the Ahead spacecraft. This view, available for the first time, allows scientists to track a type of solar disturbance called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) CMEs from their birth at the sun all the way to Earth. The outer images are produced by STEREO's two Heliospheric Imagers (HIs). The inner image of the sun and the coronagraph images, which extend to about 30 times the radius of the Sun, are from the SOHO spacecraft. STEREO has similar instruments, but these images were taken during the commissioning phases of the mission before those instruments were running regularly. The trapezoidal shape to the far left is designed to block the light from Earth, which would be too bright for the HI detectors. The CME occurred January 24 and 25, 2007. Credit: NASA/NRL
Presenter #4 - Dr. Madhulika Guhathakurta, Science Mission Directorate, NASA HQ
Image #18: This is the banner for the STEREO mission page which instructs the public on how to either obtain or build their own 3-D glasses. The site can be found at: + STEREO 3-D glasses Credit: NASA
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