The Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System Detector and Image Processing (SWAP) telescope is a compact extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imager on board the

PROBA-2 PROBA-2 is the second satellite in the European Space Agency's series of PROBA low-cost satellites that are being used to validate new spacecraft technologies while also carrying scientific instruments. PROBA-2 is a small satellite (130 kg) ...

mission. SWAP provides images of the

solar corona In astronomy, a corona (: coronas or coronae) is the outermost layer of a star's Stellar atmosphere, atmosphere. It is a hot but relatively luminosity, dim region of Plasma (physics), plasma populated by intermittent coronal structures such as so ...

at a temperature of roughly 1 million degrees. the instrument was built upon the heritage of the

Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) is an instrument on the SOHO spacecraft used to obtain high-resolution images of the solar corona in the ultraviolet range. The EIT instrument is sensitive to light of four different wavelengths: 1 ...

(EIT) which monitored the solar corona from the

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is a European Space Agency (ESA) spacecraft built by a European industrial consortium led by Matra Marconi Space (now Airbus Defence and Space) that was launched on a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS la ...

from 1996 until after the launch of the

Solar Dynamics Observatory The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission which has been observing the Sun since 2010. Launched on 11 February 2010, the observatory is part of the Living With a Star (LWS) program. The goal of the LWS program is to develop the ...

in 2010. SWAP's

coronal mass ejection A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a significant ejection of plasma mass from the Sun's corona into the heliosphere. CMEs are often associated with solar flares and other forms of solar activity, but a broadly accepted theoretical understandin ...

(CME) watch program has collected images at an improved image cadence (typically 1 image every few minutes) since the PROBA-2 launch in 2009. These events include EIT waves (global waves propagating across the solar disc from the CME eruption site), EUV dimming regions (transient coronal holes from where the CME has lifted off), filament instabilities (a specific type of flickering during the rise of a filament). SWAP's EUV images of the corona routinely extend beyond 2 solar radii from the surface of the Sun, much farther than was thought possible before the mission was launched. This led to the discovery, in 2021 by Seaton et al. using the SUVI instrument on board

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

GOES The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), operated by the United States' National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)'s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service division, supports weather fo ...

satellite, that the extended solar corona is visible in the extreme-ultraviolet, out to at least 3 solar radii from the center of the Sun. SWAP was built at the Liège Space Center and is operated from the PROBA-2 Science Center at the

Royal Observatory of Belgium The Royal Observatory of Belgium (; ; ) has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels since 1890. It is part of the institutions of the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office (BELSPO). The Royal Observatory was first established in S ...

. SWAP has been used to study coronal brightspot dynamics.

References

External links

SWAP data
{{Satellite and spacecraft instruments, state=collapsed Embedded systems Spacecraft instruments

See also

References

External links