June 25, 2018 - IRIS Eyes the Sun
IRIS Eyes the Sun While it seems static from our vantage point on Earth 93 million miles away, the Sun is constantly changing. Under the influence of complex magnetic forces, material moves throughout the solar atmosphere and can burst forth in massive eruptions. NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, tracks how energy and heat courses through a little understood region of the solar atmosphere called the interface region, the lower levels of the sun’s atmosphere. The solar observatory was launched five years ago this week for a prime mission of two years, but the mission has been extended through September 2018, with further extensions possible. In this photo, taken just before IRIS completed its 10,000th orbit, IRIS captured several large solar prominences on the edge of the Sun.
Image credit: NASA
Weekly Calendar
June 25 - July 1, 2018
Holidays - Sky Events - Space History
Monday 25
Mercury 5° south of Pollux
1894: Hermann Oberth born
1992: STS-50 Columbia launched
1997: Progress spacecraft collides with Mir Spektr module
1999: Gemini North telescope dedicated
Tuesday 26
1730: Charles Messier born
1914: Lyman Spitzer, Jr born
1963: Syncom 2 satellite launched
1984: First space shuttle launch pad abort (STS-41D)
Wednesday 27
Vesta 0.3° south of Moon
Saturn at opposition
1982: STS-4 Columbia launched
1995: STS-71 Atlantis launched
1997: NEAR-Shoemaker probe flies by asteroid Mathilde
2013: IRIS spacecraft launched
Thursday 28
Saturn 1.8° south of Moon
Mars appears stationary
Full Moon 12:53 AM ET
Friday 29
Moon at apogee
1868: George Ellery Hale born
1961: Transit 4A launched, first nuclear-powered satellite
1971: Soyuz 11 crew dies during reentry
Saturday 30
Mars 5° south of Moon
1908: Tunguska impact levels hundreds of miles of Siberian forest
2001: WMAP spacecraft launched
Sunday 1
Canada Day (Canada)
1917: 100” mirror arrives at Mt. Wilson Observatory
1972: Wernher von Braun retires from NASA
1997: STS-94 Columbia launched