SOHO Mission "Pick of the Week" Hits Impressive Milestone


In late November, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory's (SOHO) online "Pick of the Week" reached an impressive milestone: its 500th edition. This is an incredibly popular feature, which highlights one video or image of the sun each week.

The SOHO project is a cooperative effort between the European Space Agency and NASA. SOHO was designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System.

The SOHO "Pick of the Week" (POTW) began in September 2001, about five years after the start of SOHO operations. The team has produced roughly 50 images per year since that time. The series started with a request for a weekly image or video clip to be sent to the American Museum of Natural History's Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York City. The museum displays the SOHO weekly picks along with a description on a video wall. Each POTW is also sent via the museum's Astro Bulletins to about 20-30 other museums and science centers, and since early 2007 to more than 300 additional venues which are part of the Hubble Space Telescope's ViewSpace kiosk program.

When the twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft were launched in 2006, their data was also included in POTW features, depending on which event or topic seemed to have wider appeal. Steele Hill of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is the originator and producer of this highly successful program. Goddard's Joe Gurman, SOHO and STEREO project scientist, has supported this effort from its initial concept and provides comments on the content as each selection is developed. SOHO's webmaster George Dimitoglou of Goddard has been instrumental in ensuring the images, videos and captions get uploaded to the SOHO website.

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