Site of the Week
The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/
It’d fair to say that there’s very little wildlife to be found on the surface of the Sun. But hold your horses wildlife fanatics - we shouldn’t forget that the Sun has one of the biggest roles in life on Earth that it’s possible to play.
So grab your sunglasses and head over to the SOHO website, which follows the SOHO spacecraft as it probes the frontiers of our solar knowledge. The enormous amount of information you’ll be able to browse is no less than you’d expect from NASA and the European Space Agency on a subject of this magnitude - the FAQ (frequently asked questions) section alone is enough to occupy you until the next ice age. The Earth sub-section of the FAQ looks specifically at the ways that solar activity influences things at this end of the solar system: how, for instance, the ‘Little Ice Age’ of 1645-1715, during which time the Thames in London became an ice-rink, coincided with a dip in solar activity known as the ‘Maunder Minimum.’ Whether or not there was a direct cause-effect relationship is still not known, but it’s obviously an interesting and important area of research. The extent to which the Sun could be involved in global warming is a question on many minds, and it’s an increasingly active research area. So far, the answer seems to be ‘maybe, a tiny bit’.
Elsewhere you can read about the SOHO mission and the spacecraft itself; about the way the Sun works and the phenomenal phenomena involved: try Coronal Mass Ejections for starters, described as ‘a million tons of gas at a million miles per hour’; and perhaps best of all, see some amazing pictures. Head for the main gallery section and browse the many links - you’ll find all kinds of still images of the Sun, as well as animations of major activities like Coronal Mass Ejections. Even more amazing, if that’s possible, are the realtime pictures of the Sun in the ‘Latest Images’ section. A close-up picture from our closest star as it was at half past eleven this morning is not something you see every day - unless, of course, you download the free screensaver, which brings the latest images live from the Sun straight to your desktop. Blimey.
Richard Northover
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