{"id":424280,"date":"2018-01-08T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=8062271c5b3e5ab3b266c9548eee2d53"},"modified":"2018-01-08T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-08T08:00:00","slug":"the-sun-in-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=424280","title":{"rendered":"The Sun in 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\nThis montage of 365 images shows the changing activity of our Sun through the eyes of ESA\u2019s Proba-2<\/a> satellite during 2017, along with a partial eclipse for good measure.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe images were taken by the satellite\u2019s SWAP<\/a> camera, which works at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths to capture the Sun\u2019s hot turbulent atmosphere \u2013 the corona, at temperatures of about a million degrees. \n<\/p>\n

\nIn general, the Sun\u2019s 11-year activity cycle continued throughout 2017 towards a minimum, a period when the number of active regions (seen as bright regions in the images) diminish, and coronal holes (seen as darker regions) are larger and more prominent.\n<\/p>\n

\nLook closely and several images stand out as different. For around a week at the end of April\/beginning of May the Sun is not centred in the field-of-view: this is deliberate, indicating \u2018off-pointing\u2019 observations to study the extended atmosphere.\n<\/p>\n

\nPerhaps the highlight for many Sun-watchers last year was the total eclipse observed from Oregon to South Carolina in the US on 21 August. From its viewpoint in space, about 800 km above Earth, Proba-2 passed through the Moon\u2019s shadow several times and observed three partial eclipses<\/a>. One such moment is captured in the montage presented here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\nThis montage of 365 images shows the changing activity of our Sun through the eyes of ESA’s Proba-2<\/a> satellite during 2017, along with a partial eclipse for good measure.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe images were taken by the satellite’s SWAP<\/a> camera, which works at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths to capture the Sun’s hot turbulent atmosphere – the corona, at temperatures of about a million degrees. \n<\/p>\n

\nIn general, the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle continued throughout 2017 towards a minimum, a period when the number of active regions (seen as bright regions in the images) diminish, and coronal holes (seen as darker regions) are larger and more prominent.\n<\/p>\n

\nLook closely and several images stand out as different. For around a week at the end of April\/beginning of May the Sun is not centred in the field-of-view: this is deliberate, indicating ‘off-pointing’ observations to study the extended atmosphere.\n<\/p>\n

\nPerhaps the highlight for many Sun-watchers last year was the total eclipse observed from Oregon to South Carolina in the US on 21 August. From its viewpoint in space, about 800 km above Earth, Proba-2 passed through the Moon’s shadow several times and observed three partial eclipses<\/a>. One such moment is captured in the montage presented here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-424280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-multimedia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=424280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":424281,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424280\/revisions\/424281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=424280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=424280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=424280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}