Sun ID: 5102

When Coronal Holes are Smiling.... - October 26, 2022

Visualizations by Tom Bridgman Released on May 11, 2023

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) operates in a geosynchronous orbit around Earth to obtain a continuous view of the Sun. The particular instrument in this visualization records imagery in the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum at wavelengths normally absorbed by Earth's atmosphere - so we need to observe them from space.

In another example of pareidolia (Wikipedia) we have what appears to be a smiling face in the SDO/AIA 193 Angstrom filters formed by the arrangement of the darker coronal holes.

Coronal holes form at the footpoints of open magnetic field lines which form a 'fast track' for the outflowing solar wind. These 'open' field lines do not connect back to the Sun but instead reach out to the heliopause and interstellar medium. The fast solar wind has an average speed of about 750 kilometers per second, compared to the slow solar wind with speeds from 300 to 500 kilometers per second.

For comparison, we include the same time frame from the AIA 171 Angstrom filter where the 'face' is much less pronounced.

What is the PSF (Point Spread-Function)?

Many telescopes, especially reflecting telescopes such as the ones used on SDO (Wikipedia), have internal structures that support various optical components. These components can result in incoming light being scattered to other parts of the image. This can appear in the image as a faint haze, brightening dark areas and dimming bright areas. The point-spread function (Wikipedia) is a measure of how light that would normally be received by a single camera pixel, gets scattered onto other pixels. This is often seen as the "spikes" seen in images of bright stars. For SDO, it manifests as a double-X shape centered over a bright flare (see Sun Emits Third Solar Flare in Two Days). The effect of this scattered light can be computed, and removed, by a process called deconvolution (Wikipedia). This is often a very compute-intensive process which can be sped up by using a computers graphics-processing unit (GPU) for the computation.

Visualization Credits

Tom Bridgman (GST): Lead Visualizer
Scott Wiessinger (KBRwyle): Lead Producer
Laurence Schuler (ADNET): Technical Support
Ian Jones (ADNET): Technical Support

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

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https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5102

Mission:
SDO

Data Used:

SDO/AIA/193 Filter also referred to as: AIA 193

JOINT SCIENCE OPERATIONS CENTER - 2022-10-20T00:00:00 - 2022-10-31T23:59:59

http://jsoc.stanford.edu/

view all stories where this data set is used

SDO/AIA/171 Filter also referred to as: AIA 171

JOINT SCIENCE OPERATIONS CENTER - 2022-10-20T00:00:00 - 2022-10-31T23:59:59

http://jsoc.stanford.edu/

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 this series:
SDO - Footage

Keywords:
GCMD >> Earth Science >> Sun-earth Interactions >> Solar Activity >> Solar Active Regions
SVS >> Space Weather
SVS >> SDO
SVS >> Solar Dynamics Observatory
SVS >> Heliophysics
SVS >> Corona
NASA Science >> Sun
SVS >> Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging
SVS >> EUV Imaging
SVS >> Coronal Holes
SVS >> Solar Cycle 25
SVS >> Point-Spread-Function (PSF)

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