Sunspot captured by Hinode

Hinode (Sunrise), formerly known as Solar-B before reaching orbit, was launched from the Uchinoura Space Center in Japan on September 23, 2006. Hinode was designed to probe into the Sun’s magnetic field to better understand the origin of solar disturbances, which interfere with satellite communications, electrical power transmission grids, and the safety of astronauts traveling beyond the Earth’s magnetic field. Hinode circles Earth in a polar orbit that places the instruments in continuous sunlight for nine months each year and allows data dumps to a high latitude European Space Agency (ESA) ground station every orbit. NASA and other science teams support instrument operations and data collection from the spacecraft’s operation center at the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA’s) Institute of Space and Aeronautical Science facility located in Tokyo. The Hinode spacecraft is a collaboration among space agencies of Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. The Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, managed development of three instruments comprising the spacecraft; the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT); the X-Ray Telescope (XRT); and the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). This image of a sunspot, taken by Hinode, is a prime example of what the spacecraft continues to observe.