Sun  ID: 3162

RHESSI and TRACE View of January 20, 2005 Solar Flare

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on May 24, 2005
RHESSI spacecraft images of gamma-rays (blue) and X-rays (red) thrown off by the hottest part of the flare are shown with UV images from the TRACE spacecraft. The gamma rays are made by energetic protons at the Sun. Scientists were surprised that the gamma rays matched the energy spectrum of protons at Earth: the proton storm may have come directly from the Sun and not from the CME as anticipated.
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Movie with co-registered TRACE and RHESSI imagery
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As the TRACE imager saturates, we see multiple hot-spots at the loop footpoints in RHESSI.
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Closeup of AR 10720. Blue high-energy emission marks the footpoints of the coronal loops. The lower-energy red emission is from the loop structure. See note below under ImageMods.

For More Information

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solarsystem/solar_fireworks.html

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (Global Science and Technology, Inc.): Lead Animator
Robert Lin (University of California at Berkeley): Scientist
Richard Mewaldt (CalTech): Scientist
Richard Nightingale (LMSAL): Scientist
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio. Others who provided data and consultations: Karl Battams (NRL), Brian Dennis (NASA/GSFC), Sam Krucker (University of California at Berkeley)

Short URL to share this page:
https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3162

Missions:
RHESSI
TRACE

Data Used:
RHESSI/X-ray Imaging Spectrometer
2005/01/20T06:20:13 - 2005/01/20T07:26:00
The RHESSI instrument is an imaging spectrometer observing the Sun at X-ray to gamma-rays (photon energies of 3 keV to 17 MeV) at time resolutions of a few seconds. (eV stands for "electron volt" and is a unit of energy. Note that photons of visible light have energies of 2-3 eV. 1 keV is a thousand electron volts and 1 MeV is a million electron volts.
view all stories where this data set is used
TRACE/Optical Telescope/1600 Angstroms
2005/01/20T06:20:00 - 2005/01/20T08:43:57
view all stories where this data set is used
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.

This item is part of these series:
New Space Weather Mystery
Astrophysics Stills

Keywords:
DLESE >> Space science
SVS >> X-ray
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Solar Active Regions
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Solar Flares
SVS >> Active Region 10720
SVS >> Space Weather
SVS >> RHESSI
SVS >> TRACE
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> X-ray Imaging

GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation: Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 8.0.0.0.0