Sun – X Ray Photo

X-ray photograph of the sun taken on Kodak spectrographic XUV film SO-212.
The photograph was taken from a rocket shortly after the eclipse of March 7, 1970.

The shadow of the moon is visible at the lower left limb of the sun. X-rays are emitted by coronal plasmas which have temperatures of millions of degrees and are shaped by the solar magnetic fields. This photograph shows the structure of the general corona and the complexity of the magnetic interconnections both within and between the various centers of activity.

These and other phenomena will be the objects of continuous study during the Skylab mission’s Apollo Telescope Mount (ATM) solar photography experiments.

Six photographic telescopes using Kodak films will be trained on the sun and will monitor, in real time, solar activity which up to now has not been seen in the ultraviolet light of outer space.

Before Skylab, earthbound solar astronomers have suffered from “bad seeing” brought about by the atmosphere’s effectively filtering out vacuum ultraviolet.