Feature

Imaging the Sun: In Extreme Ultraviolet and in X-Rays with Space borne Instruments

Leon Ofman

In recent years, thanks to data gathered by a series of successful satellites carrying a host of instruments to observe the Sun, many important advances have been made in understanding solar coronal activity. These data, examined with the aid of numerical computer modeling and alongside theoretical studies of solar phenomena, changed our view of the active Sun. Most of the satellites are still operational, and they continuously produce new images leading to new scientific results. Several new space missions to study the Sun are planned over the next decade by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and Japan. One of these missions is the NASA Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), scheduled to be launched in 2004. STEREO will consist of two spacecraft that will observe the Sun at two separate vantage points in solar orbit and build a three-dimensional image of coronal mass ejections and solar disturbances.