Argos—The “All-Seeing” SDO 

Argos (or Argus Panoptes) was the “all-seeing” 100-eyed giant in Greek mythology. While NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has significantly less than 100 eyes, its varous filters allow the observatory to “see” the sun in many different wavelengths of light. This variety helps scientists understand how the inside of our sun works, and how energy is stored and released in the sun's atmosphere. 

This visualization shows the different wavelength filters in three sets around the sun. This enables monitoring of changes over time at all wavelengths and at any location around the limb of the sun. The wavelengths shown here are: 617.3nm optical light from SDO's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI); and 170nm (pink), 160nm (green), 33.5nm (blue), 30.4nm (orange), 21.1nm (violet), 19.3nm (bronze), 17.1nm (gold), 13.1nm (aqua), and 9.4nm (green) from SDO's Atmospheric Imaging Assemply (AIA). As features pass between one wavelength to the next, you can see dramatic differences in solar structures that appear in different wavelengths. For example, filaments extending off the limb of the sun, which are bright in 30.4 nm, appear dark in many other wavelengths; sunspots that appear dark in optical wavelengths are festooned with glowing ribbons in ultraviolet wavelengths; and small flares, invisible in optical wavelengths, are bright ribbons in ultraviolet wavelengths. 


For more information: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4117 

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