WashPo: Sunspot article oddly quotes old APOD

[RJN]

Have a look at the caption to the right of the beginning of this story on today's Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04114.html .

It seems to quote an old APOD verbatim. Compare this to: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000621.html . What's particluarly strange is that the WashPo article (taken from New Scientist apparently) is posted today, 2010, June 22, but the quoted APOD text was from the year 2000. Does anyone have any idea what they were thinking? My guess is that you should go see this soon -- before they change it!

- RJN

[swainy]

And then there's this post.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37705466/ns ... nce-space/

tc

[Chris Peterson]

I wonder what the print version looks like? I'm going to guess that they have some sort of robot or semi-automated tool that assigns multimedia content to online versions of the stories, and it went astray in this case.

[bystander]

The article itself is an almost verbatim quote from the June 14 New Scientist article What's wrong with the sun?
( http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=19572 ).

The image they used was the SDO image featured on APOD: SDO: The Extreme Ultraviolet Sun (2010 April 23)
( http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... =9&t=19170 ).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04503.html

sunspot2: Credit: SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Season's greetings! At 01:48 Universal Time on June 21 the Sun reaches its northernmost point in planet Earth's sky marking a season change and the first solstice of the year 2000. In celebration, consider this delightfully detailed, brightly colored image of the active Sun. From the EIT instrument onboard the space-based SOHO observatory, the tantalizing picture is a false-color composite of three images all made in extreme ultraviolet light. Each individual image highlights a different temperature regime in the upper solar atmosphere and was assigned a specific color; red at 2 million, green at 1.5 million, and blue at 1 million degrees C. The combined image shows bright active regions strewn across the solar disk, which would otherwise appear as dark groups of sunspots in visible light images, along with some magnificent plasma loops and an immense prominence at the righthand solar limb.

Photo Credit: Soho - Eit Consortium, Esa, Nasa Photo

[neufer]

Have a look at the caption to the right of the beginning of this story on today's Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 04114.html .

It seems to quote an old APOD verbatim. Compare this to: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000621.html . What's particluarly strange is that the WashPo article (taken from New Scientist apparently) is posted today, 2010, June 22, but the quoted APOD text was from the year 2000. Does anyone have any idea what they were thinking?

The print version of the caption simply states:

An extreme ultraviolet image shows temperatures in the sun's upper atmosphere:
Red indicates 2 million degrees Celsius; green, 1.5 million; blue, 1 million.
(SOHO/EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA)

[The Eclectic]

Things must have changed since the 22nd of June because now the text of the article at the WP is greatly expanded and neither the article nor the caption bears any resemblance to the APOD entry for June 21, 2000.

[bystander]

Things must have changed since the 22nd of June because now the text of the article at the WP is greatly expanded and neither the article nor the caption bears any resemblance to the APOD entry for June 21, 2000.

Au contraire. The main picture is still the same picture as APOD: 2000 June 21, and the caption in the photo gallery for that picture is still the third and fourth sentences from that APOD; however, they give the date as June 2010. And the article is still from New Scientist, of course they say that at the end of the article.

• 

• June, 2010
  
  From the EIT instrument onboard the space-based SOHO observatory, the tantalizing picture is a false-color composite of three images all made in extreme ultraviolet light. Each individual image highlights a different temperature regime in the upper solar atmosphere and was assigned a specific color; red at 2 million, green at 1.5 million, and blue at 1 million degrees C.
  
  NASA-SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

[neufer]

Things must have changed since the 22nd of June because now the text of the article at the WP is greatly expanded and neither the article nor the caption bears any resemblance to the APOD entry for June 21, 2000.

Au contraire. The main picture is still the same picture as APOD: 2000 June 21, and the caption in the photo gallery for that picture is still the third and fourth sentences from that APOD; however, they give the date as June 2010. And the article is still from New Scientist, of course they say that at the end of the article.

• 

• June, 2010
  
  From the EIT instrument onboard the space-based SOHO observatory, the tantalizing picture is a false-color composite of three images all made in extreme ultraviolet light. Each individual image highlights a different temperature regime in the upper solar atmosphere and was assigned a specific color; red at 2 million, green at 1.5 million, and blue at 1 million degrees C.
  
  NASA-SOHO - EIT Consortium, ESA, NASA

So they are posting a (June 2000) sunspot maximum photo as
representative of the current (June 2010) sunspot minimum?

[bystander]

So they are posting a (June 2000) sunspot maximum photo as
representative of the current (June 2010) sunspot minimum?

Never thought of it that way, but, yes, that's seems to be the case.