Starship Asterisk*

From the March 31st APOD:

In fact, from its vantage point 150 million kilometers sunward of planet Earth, SOHO's cameras can always monitor the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona.

SOHO's vantage point is 1.5 million kilometers sunward from planet Earth (link!). The sun itself is 150 million kilometers in that direction.

Somebody needs to grab that errant decimal point and stick it back where it goes!

--Howard

Tha'd be like... an EXTREME close-up of the Sun.

Hello Qev

Re link
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060331.html
Quote:
"In fact, from its vantage point 150 million kilometers sunward of planet Earth, SOHO's cameras can always monitor the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona"

ooops a zero your right Qev

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051201.html

[quote]Twelve sungazing instruments on board the spacecraft have explored the Sun's internal structure, the extensive solar atmosphere and solar wind, and discovered over 1,000 comets from a remarkable orbit around a point about 1.5 million kilometers directly sunward of planet Earth itself. At that location, known as a Lagrange point, the gravitational influence of the Earth and Sun are equal.

http://www.esa.int/esaSC/SEMM17XJD1E_index_0.html
Quote:
"If the distance is just right - about a hundredth of the distance to the Sun - the spacecraft, too, will keep its position between the Sun and the Earth and will need just one year to go around the Sun. This is L1."

The sun
http://www.nineplanets.org/sol.html

is about 150,000,000 kms from earth
Largrange point is 1500000 from earth