Hinode (Solar-B)

Active Mission

Hinode explores the magnetic fields of the Sun to improve understanding of what powers the solar atmosphere and drives solar eruptions.

Type

Space Telescope

Launch

Sept. 23, 2006

Target

Sun

Objective

Observe the Sun

Mission to the Sun

Hinode is an international mission to study our nearest star, the Sun. Hinode explores the magnetic fields of the Sun in order to improve understanding of what powers the solar atmosphere and drives solar eruptions.

👁 Animation of Hinode observations of sun

Hinode’s Solar Optical Telescope is the first space-borne instrument to measure the strength and direction of the Sun’s magnetic field on the Sun’s surface, the photosphere. Combined with two other Hinode instruments, the EUV imaging spectrometer, or EIS, and the X-ray/EUV telescope, or XRT, the mission is designed to understand the causes of eruptions in the solar atmosphere and relate those eruptions to the intense heating of the corona and the mechanisms that drive the constant outflow of solar radiation, the solar wind.