New eye on the sun.The recently launched Hinode spacecraft made this x-ray portrait of several-million-degree gas in the sun's outer atmosphere on Oct. 28. The test image reveals that features known as X-ray bright points (two exam pies are in box) are simple magnetic loops entraining entraining loading horses, cattle or any other livestock onto a train. entraining A technique for teaching Pts to focus on an extraneous factor–eg, music, rather than on a normal focus of attention. See Biofeedback. hot gas. Astronomers will monitor the bright points to find out why the sun's atmosphere, or corona, is so much hotter than its interior. In addition to an X-ray telescope, Hinode carries a visible-light telescope to study the sun's surface and a magnetograph mag·ne·to·graph n. A device for detecting and recording variations in the intensity and direction of magnetic fields. mag·ne to monitor magnetic fields magnetic fields, n.pl the spaces in which magnetic forces are detectable; created by magnetostrictive ultrasonic scalers to cause the tips of instruments such as ultrasonic scalers to vibrate. associated with sunspots sunspots, dark, usually irregularly shaped spots on the sun's surface that are actually solar magnetic storms. The Chinese recorded dark features on the sun seen with the naked eye in 28 B.C. . The craft also has an extreme-ultraviolet imaging spectrometer to track hot gas in the corona (SN: 8/19/06, p. 120). After further testing, Hinode, which means sunrise in Japanese, will begin its 3-year mission in December. |
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