The Sun’s growing prowess is on full display in a new video from space.
These are the stitched-together first images of CCOR-1, short for Compact Coronagraph. It sits atop a new weather satellite that launched this past summer. As the spacecraft is gearing up to monitor ferocious storms, CCOR-1 will stare at the Sun when the star transforms into its most volatile self.
The footage, published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on October 22, showcases the capabilities of a new coronagraph. This telescope is designed to block light coming from the bright solar disk. By doing so, it gives scientists a glimpse of the high-octane activity in the Sun’s outermost layer, the corona. Since the Sun will reach its 11-year peak in activity next year, the coronagraph’s footage will be more important than ever.
Spectators of April’s total solar eclipse may recognize the halo-shaped region seen in the video. Much like Earth’s Moon, the coronagraph allows the fainter corona light to be seen.
The corona is made up of plasma, a state of matter that occurs when gas is superheated and the gas’s neutral particles have become so excited that they free electrons, becoming charged. Thanks to the coronagraph’s September 29th footage, NOAA researchers could see plenty of these charged solar particles expelled as a “clearly defined” blast from the Sun’s left side.
“The Sun also dazzles with its small and large streamers, bright radial structures along which the solar plasma travels steadily outward,” NOAA officials stated in a video description.
The CME is packed with particles accelerated to speeds of “hundreds to thousands of miles per second,” the agency adds.
When they radiate off the Sun, they make for great videos. But when they shoot out in our direction, NASA and NOAA get concerned. Earth’s magnetic field protects life forms from the most dangerous of these effects. But satellites and astronauts who aren’t completely blanketed by the field are vulnerable. CMEs can also affect aviation communications and electric power grids, and trigger vivid auroras.
CCOR-1 sits on NOAA’s GOES-19 weather satellite, which launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on June 25, 2024.
GOES-19 orbits 22,236 miles above the equator. Since it travels at the same speed that Earth rotates, GOES-19 views the same area of our planet.
GOES-19 is still undergoing checkouts and testing, according to NOAA. It will officially begin its mission in spring 2025. The Sun’s peak in activity is anticipated for July 2025.
