Home > Ephemeris Program, NASA, Sun > 12/12/11 – Ephemeris – The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

12/12/11 – Ephemeris – The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)

December 12, 2011

Monday, December 12th.  The sun will rise at 8:09.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 52 minutes, setting at 5:02.   The moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 7:15 this evening.

Most of this week will be on the topic of Comet Lovejoy which will pass a hundred thousand moles of the sun’s surface Thursday evening our time.  It should be visible to the SOHO spacecraft orbiting the sun a million miles sunward of the earth starting Wednesday.  Normally a spacecraft inside the earth’s orbit will orbit the sun in less time than the earth and move away from the earth.  However SOHO is placed at a unique spot called L1, kind of a equilibrium point between the earth and sun  SOHO means Solar and Heliospheric Observatory was launched in 1995 and has served as an early warning sentinel for solar storms approaching the earth pretty much ever since.  It is with SOHO that we’ll see if Comet Lovejoy survives its plunge near the sun.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

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