Latest STEREO Stories

[ Watch Video 1 ] | [ Watch Video 2 ] On October 25, 2006 a Delta II rocket launched from Cape Canaveral carrying two nearly identical spacecraft. Each satellite was one half of a mission entitled Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) and they were destined to do something never done before – see the entire sun simultaneously. The sun rotates, of course, so there's no part of the sun we haven't at some point observed from our vantage point on Earth. But watching this...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 18, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA spacecraft observations and new data processing techniques are giving scientists better insight into the evolution and development of solar storms that can damage satellites, disrupt communications and cause power grid failures on Earth. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) The solar storms, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), are being observed from NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or...

Using data collected by NASA's STEREO spacecraft, researchers at Southwest Research Institute and the National Solar Observatory have developed the first detailed images of solar wind structures as plasma and other particles from a coronal mass ejection (CME) traveled 93 million miles and impacted Earth.The images from a December 2008 CME event reveal an array of dynamic interactions as the solar wind, traveling at speeds up to a million miles per hour, shifts and changes on its three-day...

NASA will host a news briefing at 2 p.m. EDT, Thursday, Aug. 18, to discuss new details about the structure of solar storms and the impact they have on Earth. The new information comes from NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft and other NASA probes.The briefing will take place in NASA Headquarters' James E. Webb Auditorium, located at 300 E St. SW in Washington, and will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website.The briefing panelists are:--...

NASA's Dawn spacecraft, designed to complete a year-long study of the asteroid Vesta, made its first detailed observations of the surface on Thursday from a distance of 1,700 miles.Dawn will spend the next several weeks taking images from that altitude. Afterward, it will spiral closer to the asteroid to get a better view. The probe was launched in September 2007 and arrived at its destination in July. Dawn is beginning the first of four planned science orbits during the spacecraft's yearlong...

Those who study the sun face an unavoidable hurdle in their research "“ their observations must be done from afar. Relying on images and data collected from 90 million miles away, however, makes it tough to measure the invisible magnetic fields sweeping around the sun.Scientists must learn more about these fields because they are crucial to understanding how coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, travel through space -- sometimes toward Earth where they can damage satellites. Now NASA researchers...

2 probes, repositioned from THEMIS mission, will map surface magnetic fieldsBy Robert Sanders, University of California - BerkeleyOn Sunday, July 17, the moon will acquire its second new companion in less than a month. That's when the second of two probes built by the University of California, Berkeley, and part of NASA's five-satellite THEMIS mission will drop into a permanent lunar orbit after a meandering, two-year journey from its original orbit around Earth.The first of the two probes...

The far side unveiled! This is the first complete image of the solar far side, the half of the sun invisible from Earth. Captured on June 1, 2011, the composite image was assembled from NASA's two Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft. STEREO-Ahead's data is shown on the left half of image and STEREO-Behind's data on the right.The STEREO spacecraft reached opposition (180° separation) on February 6 but part of the sun was inaccessible to their combined view until June...

MESSENGER's Mercury Laser Altimeter (MLA) in its first 2 months of operation has already built up a grid of ground tracks that span most of Mercury's surface north of the equator (Figure 1). These data will provide a very good measure of the shape of the planet's northern hemisphere. The shape of a planet carries a record of all of the interior dynamical and geological processes that have modified the surface.Signals from MLA's laser reflected from the surface can be recovered whenever the...

The largest disturbances to the Earth's geomagnetic environment occur when it is buffeted by solar material hurled in our direction by explosive changes in the Sun's atmosphere. These Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs contain approximately a billion tons of ionized gas or plasma and can have a dramatic and damaging impact on everything from satellites to power grids.Now a team of scientists have used two spacecraft to study these events in unprecedented detail. Graduate student Anthony Williams...