National Aeronautics and Space Administration

New interactive visualization tools developed by the NASA/European Space Agency (ESA) Helioviewer Project allow scientists and the general public to explore images of the sun captured by NASA and ESA solar observing spacecraft. This week, Geeked On Goddard takes a close look at these new tools, explaining how they work and what you can do with them.



[Post 1 of 5]

Last week on June 7, Goddard solar scientist Jack Ireland woke up around 6 am and checked the website Helioviewer.org to find out what people were looking at on the sun. He saw that 36 minutes earlier, some anonymous person on the Internet had posted a video of an enormous eruption on the sun’s surface.

“I checked it out, and thought it was spectacular and unlike anything I had ever seen before,” Ireland recalls. Ireland sent out an email alerting his colleagues (and Geeked On Goddard) of the event.

Hello All,

Found this event on Helioviewer.org this morning, courtesy of our users. I thought you might be interested in it. The event is still in progress right now.  Quite spectacular.

Cheers,
Jack

[Unfortunately, that anonymous user took down the Helioviewer-made video of the eruption that Ireland's email originally linked to, so we don't know who he or she was.]

Over the next 24 hours, the dramatic fountaining prominence eruption amazed the world — and showed the power of Helioviewer, which Ireland has played a key role in creating.

If you’ve never heard of Helioviewer, go right now to the helioviewer.org website. That glowing orange-yellow ball you see is the sun as seen by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. You see what the spacecraft sees — as recently as 20 minutes ago. And that’s just the start.

You can change “channels” on the sun, observing its churning surface from different sensors on the spacecraft. You can mix the channels together to create unique new images, revealing features and processes occurring at different temperatures and locations.

The Helioviewer Project’s primary mission is to provide innovative new tools to solar scientists. But aspiring “citizen scientists” are also welcome. For example, a recently added feature allows you to create short time-lapse videos of the sun and then upload them quickly on YouTube — or save a copy for yourself on your computer. (The unknown user who discovered the June 7 prominence used the YouTube uploader to report his finding.)

How it all started
The Helioviewer Project began at Goddard in 2004-2005. It is a partnership of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). The effort has produced two complementary tools: the Helioviewer.org website and an installable piece of software called JHelioviewer.

The Helioviewer Project team at Goddard consists of Ireland and computer programmer Keith Hughitt, both based in the Heliophysics Science Division. Summer interns have also contributed at various times.

Ireland conceived of Helioviewer in 2004 and started building a prototype. ESA’s Daniel Müller, the deputy project scientist for the ESA/NASA Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), started working on JHelioviewer  in 2007 while based at Goddard. Hughitt joined them in 2008. Together, they started the Helioviewer Project, which combines the efforts of Helioviewer.org and JHelioviewer, as well as various “back end” programming on the servers that help power the front-end visualization tools that users actually interact with. Müller returned to Europe in 2010, and ESA officially released the JHelioviewer software late that same year.

Seeing like a satellite
Ireland says the motivation for creating both Helioviewer.org and JHelioviewer was to make it easier to access the wealth of scientific data from various satellite sources.

“It occurred to me that we have a lot of different websites that visualize different observations about a single object, the sun,” he says. “Having many disparate websites and browse tools didn’t make too much sense.”

Ireland also just wanted to see the sun as an integrated whole, the way SOHO and SDO see it. He remembers one day watching two different SOHO images of the sun — one with the sun itself filling the monitor, and another showing the solar disk in the middle of its much more extended outer atmosphere.

“But what you actually see and what your physical understanding is that the sun is in the middle of this bigger space. So why couldn’t we see that? I mean, that’s what’s out there. My original motivation was just to try to reproduce on a web site, somehow, everything of what the spacecraft see.”

To do so called for a tool that would superimpose different images on the same space, in perfect alignment. That initial concept became Helioviewer.

Complementary tools
Helioviewer currently draws on image data from SDO as well as more than a million images collected by SOHO, which became operational in 1996. A limited set of images from the twin STEREO spacecraft are now available, and that access will expand with time.

To get started, first try the Web-based Helioviewer.org. It allows you to browse images, zoom in, make a screen shot, or create a short video of up to a week of solar activity, using up to 300 different solar images.

JHelioviewer is standalone software written in the Java computer language, hence the moniker JHelioviewer. To start, download it from the JHelioviewer.org site and install it on your computer. Versions are available for Mac, Windows, or Linux operating systems.

JHelioviewer has more powerful capabilities than Helioviewer.org, but the tools complement each other, Hughitt explains.

“The Web app is very easy to start using and does not require installing any software, while JHelioviewer, on the other hand, requires a little more setup but has a more flexible movie streaming system and supports some basic image processing that is not yet available on the web version. The projects are meant to be complimentary efforts; think Google Maps and Google Earth.”

TOMORROW: A closer look at Helioviewer.org and its features.




LEARN MORE

Helioviewer.org (Web app)

A collection of video highlights from 2011 (so far) created by Helioviewer.org users.

See a Helioviewer.org video made by “citizen scientist” LudzikLegoTechnics on YouTube.

The Helioviewer Project Wiki:

JHelioviewer (downloadable software)

Read a Web feature about JHelioviewer and its capabilities

The JHelioviewer online handbook

JHelioviewer video tutorial on YouTube HD

ESA Web feature about JHelioviewer.

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.




For the past 4 years, the two STEREO spacecraft have been moving away from Earth and gaining a more complete picture of the sun. On Feb. 6, 2011, NASA will hold a press conference to reveal the first ever images of the entire sun and discuss the importance of seeing all of our dynamic star.




Let me bottom-line it for you: The Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) mission consists of two nearly identical spacecraft. One follows Earth around the sun; the other leads us. When those two craft are 180 degrees apart from each other, they will be able to see the ENTIRE sun simultaneously.

The time has almost come.

Below is a screen shot I took from the STEREO website. As you can see, Stereo A and Stereo B are almost 180 degrees from each other — on opposite sides of the sun — and 90 degrees from Earth. The orbits have been migrating gradually into this configuration for years, since the mission’s 2006 launch.



You’ll be hearing much more about this from NASA and gogblog as we approach February 9.
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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.



This just in from our “Solar Dynamics Observatory is blowing my mind” department — and SpaceWeather.com:  a plasma mega-snake on the sun.

A magnetic filament snaking around the sun’s southeast limb just keeps getting longer. The portion visible today stretches more than 700,000 km–a full solar radius. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture during the early hours of Dec. 6th. The STEREO-B spacecraft, stationed over the sun’s eastern horizon, saw this filament coming last week. So far the massive structure has hovered quietly above the stellar surface, but now it is showing signs of instability. Long filaments like this one have been known to collapse with explosive results when they hit the stellar surface below. Stay tuned for action.




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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

As NASA’s STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft watched over about 2.5 days in extreme ultraviolet light (Nov. 23-25, 2010), plasma tendrils and filaments swirled and unfurled at the sun’s edges. Nothing unusual here; it’s just our unquiet sun doing its thing.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

This week the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) “Pick of the Week” offers a video clip of a massive loop of hot plasma caught by one of NASA’s twin STEREO spacecraft. Here’s a video loop of the event, compressing hours of time into a few seconds.



Says the SOHO website:

The STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft watched as an eruptive prominence near the back of the Sun arched up but then headed back to the Sun’s surface over a few hours (Sept. 19, 2010). Prominence eruptions occur fairly frequently and with both STEREO spacecraft now able to see most of the Sun, we do observe more of them.



And one great prominence deserves another. Check out this whopper from back in April:


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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

Here’s a dramatic short video from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) “Pick of the Week” website. The images were actually captured by one of the twin STEREO spacecraft.



Here’s the detailed explanation from the Pick of the Week site:

As the STEREO (Behind) spacecraft observed in extreme UV light, the sun popped off no fewer than six eruptions over just two days (Aug. 14-15, 2010). At one point, three were occurring events at the same time. Most these were eruptive prominences in which cooler clouds of gases above the surface break away from the sun. The most powerful of these events, a coronal mass ejection, began around 6:30 UT on Aug. 15. It was harder to see from this spacecraft’s angle since it blasted out from the whiter active region in the lower center, so it had the sun as its backdrop.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

[Um.... Make that the TUESDAY video rewind picture show. We had a network outage yesterday, so sorry about that. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. . . ]

Given the recent upturn in stormy solar activity, it seemed a good time to revisit the spectacular piece of visualization known as Sentinels of the Heliosphere. This video debuted in 2009 at SIGGRAPH, an international conference and exhibition on computer graphics and interactive techniques.






_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

SUNDAY AUGUST 1: The Modis Image of the Day shows serpentine vortices of air flow around and over the island of Tristan de Cunha in the South Atlantic.

STORMY SUN: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and STEREO spacecraft observe a complex disturbance on the sun. This releases a blast of magnetically charged plasma, heading toward Earth.



MONDAY AUGUST 2: Hubble Gotchu Guy “Milky J” airs his new video on the Jimmy Fallon show. Filmed at Goddard’s massive Building 7-10-15-29 complex, the video features gang-signing NASA scientists and Milky J’s signature dry wit as he confronts the looming threat of the Webb Telescope to his beloved Hubble.

AWESOME-O-LICIOUS: NASA Blueshift’s Weekly Awesomeness Round-Up sports a cool video tour of the lunar surface based on Clementine data and other morsels of image and video from NASA.



TUESDAY AUGUST 3: A coronal mass ejection from the sun slams into Earth’s magnetic field, igniting a significant geomagnetic storm. Aurora spotters in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Maine, Canada, and Alaska report Northern Lights shows. The show continues the following night.

MILKY J PIX: A NASA Blueshift blog post by Maggie Masetti features a gaggle of behind-the-scenes photos of the filming of Milky J’s new Hubble Gotchu Guy video. . . ME TOO! And on the (ahem) Geeked On Goddard blog, writer and NASA web commando Robert Garner provides another perspective on Milky J’s history making visit to Goddard.

EGYPTIAN SKIES: Pyramids, the space station, the moon, and planets grace today’s Earth science picture of the day.

HERMEAN HOLIDAY: Six years ago today, NASA launched the MESSENGER spacecraft to Mercury.



WEDNESDAY AUGUST 4: Earth Observatory posts a Terra satellite image of the Pakistani city of Kheshgi, “awash in floodwater,” like other devastated areas of the country’s Northwest.



THURSDAY AUGUST 5: The Pinoy Achiever’s blog spotlights Josefino Comiso, a senior scientist at the Cryospheric Sciences Branch of the Goddard Space Flight Center. The blog celebrates the successes of Philippinos. (“Pinoy” is a word Philippinos use to refer to themselves.)

80 SMALL LEAPS: Happy 80th birthday, Neil Armstrong. On this day in 1930, you were born in Wapakoneta, Ohio. And during a notable field trip on July 20, 1969, you said: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

COSMIC MASH UP: A new video simultaneously shows two galaxies colliding, seen through the eyes of NASA’s three surviving “great” space observatories: the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope. (Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, R.I.P., was the fourth.)



FRIDAY AUGUST 6: Spaceweather.com wraps up this week’s wild solar shenanigans this way:

THE SHOW IS OVER . . . FOR NOW: Geomagnetic activity has subsided to low levels and the aurora show of August 3rd and 4th has come to an end. At the height of the display, Northern Lights descended as far south as Wisconsin and Iowa in the United States.

DON’T MISS the latest mindblowing SDO image of the August 1 solar disturbance — in fact, here it is below! This space observatory is truly living up to its promise as the Hubble Space Telescope of solar astronomy.



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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.

Like most earthlings, you probably didn’t make it to Easter Island to see the solar eclipse on Sunday July 11. But here’s something you would not have been able to see even from Easter Island: a combined space-and-surface view of the eclipse.

This is another in the series of fantastic solar images that Goddard’s Steele Hill releases to science museums and other public places every week from the Solar Dyanamics Observatory (SDO), SOHO, and STEREO spacecraft. Hill is one of our media people for those three missions.

Steele created this image by combining an image taken by the Williams College Expedition to Easter Island (the black-and-white portion) with snapshots from space courtesy of SDO and SOHO.

SOHO’s contribution, in red, shows the sun’s outer atmosphere (corona). To make the corona more visible,  SOHO uses a device called a “coronograph” to cover the glaring central disk. It’s sort of what you do when you hold your palm out to mask the blinding glare of a bright light shining in your eyes.

The Williams College image (again, the black-and-white portion) shows the sun’s inner corona.

Finally, SDO donated the image of the sun’s central disk to cover the silhouette of the moon, which blocked the sun’s glare during the eclipse.

Voila! A truly blogolicious composite of gogblog’s favorite star ever!

In Steele’s own words:

I’ve done this several times before.  The challenge is correctly rotating the image to align the structures in the eclipse image with the structures the coronagraph sees.  Since the eclipse image was taken in the South Pacific, the image has a different perspective versus our spacecraft.  But that did not take too long.  I like the way that we can combine ground-based and space-borne images and bring the three perspectives together.

For additional details about this image, read the NASA image release from this morning. And let’s not forget to thank Jay M. Pasachoff, Muzhou Lu, and Craig Malamut from the Williams College Eclipse Expedition for allowing this use of their image.

An earlier gogblog post explores one of Steele Hill’s previous solar images from SDO.

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OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center.