National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Marshall Space Flight Center
Hinode (Solar-B)
News Archive - 2010
XRT News: The paper "Temperature distribution of a non-flaring active region from simultaneous Hinode XRT and EIS observations", by Testa P., Reale F., Landi E., DeLuca, E.E., and Kashyap V., has recently been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. (Here's the link to the arXiv.org entry: http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.0346.)
Hinode Science Center News: ESA approved the extension of the Hinode mission
XRT News: The paper "Coronal Temperature Diagnostic Capability of the Hinode/X-Ray Telescope Based on Self-Consistent Calibration", by N. Narukage, T. Sakao, R. Kano, H. Hara, M. Shimojo, T. Bando, F. Urayama, E. DeLuca, L. Golub, M. Weber, P. Grigis, J. Cirtain, and S. Tsuneta, has recently been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
EIS Nugget: EIS observations of a sigmoidal active region
EIS Nugget: Spectroscopic analysis of an EIT wave/dimming observed by Hinode/EIS
XRT News: The paper "The Role of Magnetic Topology in the Heating of Active Region Coronal Loops," by J.-Y. Lee, Graham Barnes, K.D. Leka, Katharine Reeves, K. Korreck, L. Golub, and E.E. DeLuca, has recently been published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Conference Announcement: The Hinode Science Working Group (SWG) has announced that the Hinode-5 Science Meeting will be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 11-14.
XRT News: XRT got nice observations of the M2.9 class flare at 19:02 UTC on 10/16, including pre-flare buffer images!
EIS Nugget: EIS target practice: testing our Bright Point Trigger
Major XRT News! Important calibration update
Dear Friends of XRT,
The XRT team has produced and released a substantial upgrade to the analysis software. This new release contains code that corrects for time
dependent contamination of the XRT analysis filters and adjusts filter thicknesses to be consistent with the thorough analysis done by
Narukage et al. (2010 Solar Physics, submitted). New tools for temperature and emission measure analysis are also included in this software release.
Extensive documentation of these routines are contained in the program header information and descriptions of many of the XRT analysis tools are
given in the XRT Analysis Guide (found at http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/documents/XAG/XAG.pdf). All of the new software and associated data base files have
been upload to the SolarSoftWare distributions site. Users of XRT data should be sure that their SSW IDL libraries are up to date.
Please send questions and report any bugs to xrt_manager [at] cfa.harvard.edu.
Note that the changes may take a day or two to percolate through SolarSoft.
Regards,
Kathy Reeves
XRT Project Scientist
XRT News:
XRT image headers have a keyword, FLFLG, which indicates if the XRT flare flag has been set. The FLFLG keyword tells you if the XRT flare flag
tripped but it does not tell you if XRT responded to the flare flag. As of reformatter version 1.52, beginning with images from about 2010/08/10 07:59,
we have also added a new keyword, OBS_MODE, in order to indicate if XRT is running a flare mode program or a normal (quiet) mode program. This keyword
is set to 'QT' if XRT is running a normal mode program and 'FL' if XRT is running in flare mode.
The OBS_MODE keyword does not exist in images processed before 2010/08/10, and the FLFLG keyword was not set correctly during a flare trigger in these
prior images as well. We are working to update the XRT back catalog with correct information. In the meantime, the times when the XRT flare flag tripped,
and information about whether or not XRT responded, can be found here:
http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/missionops/flare_trigger_list/xrt_flare_flags.txt.
Please send any questions or concerns to xrt_manager_at_head.cfa.harvard.edu.
XRT & EIS News: The paper 'Multi-Stranded and Multi-Thermal Solar Coronal Loops: Evidence from Hinode X-Ray Telescope and EUV Imaging Spectrometer Data', by J.T. Schmelz, S.H. Saar, K. Nasraoui, V.L. Kashyap, M.A. Weber, E.E. DeLuca, and L. Golub, has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
EIS Nugget: Multi-wavelength observations of small-scale reconnection events triggered by magnetic flux emergence
XRT News:
The XRT Team has just released a new upgrade to the basic XRT calibration program xrt_prep.pro. (It should appear in the SSW tree in the next few days.)
The new version allows the user without a local XRT data archive to setup automatic copying over the web of darks required for the best (default) dark
subtraction. The new version also reduces error messages when files are not found, and uses 512x2048 "strip darks" to approximate 2048x2048 darks in the
calibration for more recent 1x1 binned data (as 2048x2048 1x1 binned darks are now rare due to telemetry issues). See the program headers for more details.
Comments, feedback, and bug reports regarding these routines may be directed to this email address: xrt_manager_at_head.cfa.harvard.edu
XRT News: The paper 'Reconnection Outflows and Current Sheet Observed with Hinode/XRT in the 2008 April 9 "Cartwheel CME" Flare,' by S. Savage, D. McKenzie, K. Reeves, T. Forbes and D. Longcope has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. A preprint can be found at on the arXiv preprint server at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4758.
EIS News: NASA Warns of Catastrophe Caused by Emerging Solar Flares
EIS News: The sun sends a charged cloud hurtling our way
EIS News: Nasa scientists braced for 'solar tsunami' to hit earth
EIS News: Double blast on Sun aimed at Earth
EIS Nugget: Preparing EIS data using neural networks
XPOW: Twisty, Twirly, Expanding AR11087
EIS News: Watch: Studying the Sun
XRT News: XRT observed the July 11 2010 solar eclipse. This eclipse was visible from the South Pacific, and XRT/Hinode participated in joint observations with eclipse observers in The Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Easter Island. A set XRT images from the eclipse can be found on the X-Ray Picture of the Week (XPOW) page.
EIS Nugget: Response of the corona to the emergence of "serpentine" magnetic field
EIS News: NRL Scientists Explore the Mystery of Active Region Outflows
EIS Nugget: Velocity Characteristics of Evaporated Plasma
Hinode Science Center News: Hinode discovers the origin of white-light flare emission
XRT News: The 2010 Hinode/XRT team meeting will bring together members of the Hinode teams and other scientific investigators to discuss technical issues of XRT, scientific results, and plans for future observations. The dates of the meeting are June 16 (Technical Discussion) and June 17-18 (Science Discussion), and the location is Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. The SOC solicits your abstracts for this meeting. For additional information, and the full announcement, please visit the meeting website at http://solar.physics.montana.edu/HINODE/XRT/TeamMtg/.
EIS Nugget: Preparing EIS data using neural networks
EIS News: EIS observations of pre-flare activity
EIS Nugget: Interchange reconnection along a coronal hole boundary?
XRT News: The calibration database for the CCD contamination layer has been updated; it is now current up to 2010-Feb-19. (This database is automatically accessed by the XRT SolarSoft code make_xrt_wave_resp.pro, which can be used to calculate the time-dependent effective areas.) Our intention is to update the database regularly after bake-outs. An improved analysis was used to recompute the layer thickness; users will note some changes in the computed thicknesses for data times before 2007-Sep-08.
SOT POD:
Sun spot: The cycle of magnetic activity on our Sun changes over about eleven years, give or take a few months.
The most recent minimum of activity delayed the start of the current cycle by a relatively long two year period.
Generally, the Sun's cycle of activity rises faster than it decays, showing a higher rate of occurrence of sunspot regions before the peak of the cycle than after.
The new solar cycle is off to a fast start with some very large sunspots popping up on the solar surface.
Shown is an image of NOAA Active Region #11054 in the light of molecular CH (G-band).
The image was taken on 14 March 2010 at 10:00 UT by the Broadband Filter Imager of the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope.
Courtesy Zoe Frank
Hinode Science Center News: Hinode discovered strong magnetic field patches in the Sun's polar region
EIS Nugget: The Weird and Wonderful World of Widths
SOT POD:
Loop Dynamics: Ca II H images of the Sun taken by the Solar Optical Telescope aboard Hinode, from 2010 Feb 14 20:37 through 2010 Feb 15 07:15.
NOAA Active Region number 11045 approaches the western limb of the Sun.
Material is thrown outward from the solar atmosphere in coronal mass ejections (or CMEs).
Glowing loops form as hot material in the solar atmosphere flows along the solar magnetic fields. Hot plasma flows down the legs of coronal loops, like rain falling to the surface of the Sun.
The small, hair-like plasma structures visible on the limb of the Sun, against the darkness of space, are called spicules.
We see plasma brighten in response to rapid heating events such as solar flares.
Our constant star is never at rest.
Courtesy Zoe Frank.
EIS Nugget: Find a flare observed with Hinode EIS
XRT News: XRT observed the eclipse of Jan-15-2010. A movie of the moon eclipsing an active region can be found on the X-Ray Picture of the Day page.
SOT POD:
Fuzzy limb: Limb of the Sun on January 19, 2010, at 06:42 UT.
This image was taken at the H-alpha line center, wing, and CaH.
In a red color table, it makes the Sun look like a big, fuzzy, warm blanket.
Courtesy Zoe Frank
EIS News: Sigmoid: portents of eruption
- NASA Contact: Sabrina Savage
- Page Last Updated: Tuesday, 04 April 2017