2013-May-20
New XRT paper:
The paper "Indeterminacy and instability in Petschek reconnection" by Forbes,
Priest, Seaton, and Litvinenko has been accepted for publication in Physics
of Plasmas.
In this paper, two puzzling aspects of Petschek's model for fast reconnection
are explained. One is its failure to occur in plasma simulations with uniform
resistivity. The other is its inability to provide anything more than an upper
limit for the reconnection rate. The authors found that previously published
analytical solutions based on Petschek's model are structurally unstable if the
electrical resistivity is uniform. The structural instability is associated
with the presence of an essential singularity at the X-line that is unphysical.
By requiring that such a singularity not exist, the authors obtain a formula
that predicts a specific rate of reconnection. For uniform resistivity,
reconnection can only occur at the slow, Sweet-Parker rate. For nonuniform
resistivity, reconnection can occur at a much faster rate provided that the
resistivity profile is not too flat near the X-line. If this condition is
satisfied, then the scale length of the nonuniformity determines the
reconnection rate.
2013-May-15
New XPOW:
Three X-Flares in 24 Hours!
2013-May-10
New XPOW:
Solar Eclipse of May 10th, 2013 Update: Our eclipse movie has been
shared by PopSci!
2013-April-11
New XPOW:
Sigmoid Eruption on March 15th, 2013
2013-March-25
New XPOW:
Limb CME on Feb 15th, 2013
2013-March-7
New XPOW:
Coronal Cavity with Bright Core
2013-February-28
New XPOW:
Plasma Flows Along Coronal Loops
2013-February-14
New XPOW:
Happy Valentine's Day!
UPDATE: XRT's valentine has been featured in a
PopSci article,
as Wired's
Space Photo of the Day,
and in a collection of
astro-valentines
compiled by Slate.
2013-February-06
New XRT paper:
The paper "Turbulent Dynamics in Solar Flare Sheet Structures Measured with
Local Correlation Tracking" by David E. McKenzie has been accepted for
publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
In this paper, motions in
flare plasmas are monitored with Local Correlation Tracking (first time LCT has
been used in the corona, maybe?). The velocity field of the plasma is
determined, and from that a vorticity can be inferred. The paper demonstrates
that recent developments in high-resolution, high-cadence imaging of the corona
make it possible to study turbulence in the flare plasma. Turbulence has long
been the domain of spectroscopy, where turbulence is inferred from nonthermal
broadening of emission lines. Such 1-dimensional studies (i.e., velocities
along the line of sight) have been all that was available. The imagery from
XRT and AIA bring two additional spatial dimensions into play, and combination
of the imagery with spectroscopy offers to complete the set. The reason it
matters is this--- turbulence creates small length scales, and small length
scales enable reconnection. In the words of the Heliophysics Roadmap, it's all
about "the microphysics of magnetic reconnection by determining the kinetic
processes responsible".
Although some dynamic activity was seen in other parts of the
eruptive structure, the most notable feature was
apparent
rotation in the southernmost part of the extended coronal structure,
immediately above the limb. The LCT allows the velocity field to be mapped,
and then one can explore the plasma motion via either Eulerian or Lagrangian
techniques. As an example, the vorticity has been calculated in this rotating
feature (context and
vortex map).
2013-January-16
New XPOW:
Fifteen Active Regions in One Image
2013-January-04
New XPOW:
C-Flare from Sigmoidal AR 11608
2012-December-17
New XPOW:
Long-Duration B-Flare from AR 11598
2012-December-10
New XPOW:
Sweeping Active Region Jet
2012-November-28
New XPOW:
X-Ray Bokeh
2012-November-21
New XPOW:
Rolling Void in AR 11563
2012-November-20
Press coverage:
Wired Science has an article entitled
5 Years of Incredible X-Ray Explosions From the Sun, which features
an XRT video.
2012-November-14
New XPOW:
Solar Eclipse of November, 2012
2012-October-31
New XPOW:
Massive Filament Eruption from 2012/08/31
2012-October-18
New XPOW:
C-flare on Sept 27, 2012 (Filament Eruption)
2012-October-05
Calibration event:
XRT will be running a 72-hour CCD Bakeout, starting Tuesday, Oct.
9 (UT). There will be no science data taken during this time period.
2012-October-03
Monthly Science Highlights:
Each month we highlight recent XRT science papers. A
PDF summary of the highlights is available. The papers themselves
are ADS-linked below (when possible):
2012-September-25
New XPOW:
Synoptics Surrounding Sympathetic Filament Eruptions
2012-September-15
New XPOW:
5.5 Years of XRT Synoptic Observations
2012-August-31
New XPOW:
Beautiful Candle Flame Cusp on the Limb
2012-August-27
New XPOW:
Filament Eruption with Supra-Arcade Downflows
2012-July-31
New XPOW:
X1.4 Flare of July 12, 2012
2012-July-24
New XPOW:
July Fireworks
2012-July-09
New XPOW:
High Cadence Flare Response with Long/Short Exposure Composites
2012-July-02
New XPOW:
The Emergence of Active Region 11512
2012-June-19
New XPOW:
Eruptive Flare with High-Cadence Response (2012/04/30)
2012-June-07
New XPOW:
The Transit of Venus
2012-May-30
New XPOW:
Wandering Field Lines During Filament Eruption
2012-May-21
New XPOW:
Solar Eclipse of May 20th, 2012
2012-April-18
New XPOW:
Supra-Arcade Downflows After Long Duration B-Flare
2012-April-11
New XPOW:
Hot Non-Potential Core in AR 11433
2012-April-03
New XPOW:
X-Points, Loop Expansions, and Cusp Loops
2012-March-27
New XPOW:
Possible Slip-Running Reconnection on 2012/03/25
2012-March-19
Monthly Science Highlights:
Each month we highlight recent XRT science papers. A
PDF summary of the highlights is available. The papers themselves
are ADS-linked below (when possible):
2012-March-19
New XPOW:
X-Ray Jet on 2012/03/16
2012-March-07
New XPOW:
Three X-Flares in Two Days from AR 11429
2012-February-21
Conference Announcement:
The
Hinode 6th Science Meeting will be held in St. Andrews, Scotland,
on August 13--17, 2012. The deadline for abstract submission is 30 June 2012.
The deadline for registration is 30 June 2012.
2012-February-10
New XPOW:
Supra-Arcade Downflows Post X-Flare (2012/01/27)
2012-February-9
Breaking News! XRT-CO Antonia Savcheva (BU) has passed
the oral part of her PhD comprehensive exams.
We expect her thesis to be done in about a year from now.
Congratulations from the Hinode / XRT Team, Antonia!
2012-February-7
XRT makes it to NASA Image of the Day!:
Hinode/XRT caught a large flare on the limb of the Sun, and
one of our images was featured as the NASA Image of the Day for
2012-February-7.
2012-February-6
Monthly Science Highlights:
Each month we will highlight three recent XRT science papers. A summary of the
papers is given
HERE . The papers themselves are ADS-linked below:
2012-January-25
New XPOW:
Highly Flare Productive AR Complex - 2012/01/22 Synoptic
2012-January-19
Conference Announcement:
The Hinode 6th Science Meeting will be held in St. Andrews, Scotland,
on August 13--17, 2012. (We will announce a meeting website when
one becomes available.)
2012-January-18
New XPOW:
Can you spot Comet Lovejoy?
2011-December-9
Operational announcement:
Regarding the MDP bit-error of 2011-December-7:
The MCU reset related to the MDP 2-bit error recovery was successfully
performed. XRT can resume normal observations on Saturday evening (JST).
2011-December-7
Operational announcement:
A bit error has been detected in the MDP (Main Data Processor of
the spacecraft). This happens occasionally, and the recovery is
routine. However, there won't be any observations during the Thursday
timeline period. Observations are expected to resume on Saturday
evening (JST).
2011-December-2
New XPOW:
The Partial Solar Eclipse of 2011/11/25
2011-October-20
Group photo from the Hinode 5th Science Meeting,
hosted by SAO/XRT.
2011-October-4
2011 Flare catching statistics:
Kathy Reeves has compiled some statistics on XRT's success rate on
catching large (X- and M-class) flares in calendar year 2011, so far. The
presentation will be made to the Hinode Science Working Group Meeting
on Oct. 10. Here are a few:
2011-September-13
Education / Public Outreach: XRT
E&PO DVD now available free upon request:
The Hinode/XRT Team has put together a DVD product called The XRT
Education & Public Outreach DVD: Space Science Careers: Building
Hinode XRT, A Space X-ray Telescope. This package is available
free upon request.
Product description
Product order form
From the product description:
"Space Science Careers: Building Hinode XRT, A Space X-Ray
Telescope is a resource for high school guidance counselors and
others who provide career awareness information to high school
students. The goal of Space Science Careers is to introduce students
particularly those who might be interested in technical careers to
the diversity of career opportunities at NASA and in the space
industry...
"Space Science Careers embeds career awareness in video clips that document the construction of an X-ray telescope... that was launched into Earth orbit on the Hinode satellite on September 23, 2006. The resource provides students with a unique window into the workplace and an unscripted view of workers collaborating and solving problems as they attend to their specialties."
2011-August-24
Education / Public Outreach: XRT Team Member Kentaro Yaji-san sends us this news:
Dear all This is Kentaro Yaji. Thank you for everybody efforts for HOP173 observations. This highly encouraged the high school students. The following is the homepage for HOP173 EPO campaign observation Sorry in Japanese. http://www.rikkyo.ne.jp/web/yaji/hinode/hop173/ The title of this page represents "Let's observe the sun with Hinode!" I don't sufficiently update the images taken by high school students. But there is a list of high school in the last part of the homepage. If you click the high school name, you might be see some solar images. In the following, the observation results of last year are previewed. http://www.rikkyo.ne.jp/web/yaji/hinode/hop173/hop173_preview.html Regards, Thank you. ------------------------ Rikkyo University Kentaro Yaji
2011-August-24
Operational announcement: Filter wheel
1 (FW1) has been returned to automatic control mode. During spacecraft
eclipse season, FW1 is put into a manual control mode to mitigate
against possible lock-ups. Now that eclipse season has ended, FW1
has been returned to a mode where all of its filter positions can
be freely used by the observing tables.
2011-August-5
Data gap: XRT temporarily stopped
taking data around 11:17 UT on July 28. It has been determined
that there was an error made in a table upload. Apart from missing
a few days' worth of data, there have been no negative consequences
of this error, and there was never any risk. Observations resumed
around 10:38 UT on August 4.
2011-July-13
Job Announcement: The Solar and Stellar X-ray
Group at SAO is hiring for an Astrophysicist position. Details on
the job, qualifications and the application process can be found
here:
SAO Job#11-46.
The application deadline is being extended to July 31.
2011-July-13
The abstract deadline for the
Hinode-5
Science Conference has been extended to August 15.
2011-May-24
Hinode-5
(The Fifth Hinode Science Conference) will be held in
Cambridge, MA, October 10--15.
The registration for the Hinode 5 meeting is now open:
http://hinode5.cfa.harvard.edu/Registration/.
July 1, 2011 is the deadline for early registration, abstract
submission, and housing. Mark your calendars!
More information at the Hinode 5 website:
http://hinode5.cfa.harvard.edu/.
2011-May-5
Job Announcement: The Solar and Stellar X-ray Group at SAO is hiring for a Research Assistant position.
Details on the job, qualifications and the application process can be found here:
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/hr/postings/11-40.html
2011-Apr-14
Big News: Next week, Hinode-XRT operations will
resume regular two-day timelines.
2011-Mar-21
Big News: Due to interruptions in power at
JAXA/ISAS and in Tokyo, we have had to simplify the Hinode-XRT
operations for the short-term future. Single timelines will
encompass several days of operations. As a consequence, Hinode-XRT
planners will not be able to respond to rapidly changing conditions
on the Sun during this period. However, on-board response functions
(such as automatic exposure control and flare response tables)
continue to operate nominally, and there is no impact to the safety
of the instrument. We will keep you informed on this website as the
operations conditions change.
2011-Mar-21
Major Update: March 11 Letter from Hinode-XRT PI
to Japanese Colleagues regarding earthquake and tsunami.
Dear Japanese Colleagues,
We are shocked and horrified at the damage that has been shown from the earthquake and tsunami. I am sure that many members of the Japanese solar community have been affected either directly or indirectly by the disaster. If there are actions that the US community can take to ease the burden during the coming weeks, please let us know. You are in our thoughts and prayers.
Sincerely,
Ed DeLuca
[Hinode-XRT PI]
[March 11, 2011]
2011-Feb-10
"Hinode Looks into a Hole on the Sun":
An XRT image (Ti/poly) from Feb.1 is featured on the NASA/Missions/HINODE
page this week.
(The feature page is here.) UPDATE 2011-Feb-14: The feature is also being
carried by Fox News now:
"Scientists Discover Giant Holes in the Sun".
2011-Feb-03
The paper "Quantitative Examination of a Large Sample of Supra-Arcade
Downflows in Eruptive Solar Flares", by S.Savage and D.McKenzie,
has recently been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal. Expected publication is March 20, 2011, V730.
2011-Feb-03
Recently, XRT took 9-filter synoptic observations on Jan 5 (12 UT),
Jan 9 (20 UT), and Jan 13 (20 UT). We compared them with the
corresponding images taken by SDO/AIA. The results can be found
HERE.
2011-Jan-04
XRT observed an annular eclipse on January 4, at approximately 9:16 UT. An image and a movie of
the eclipse can be found on the XPOW page.
2010-Dec-17
XRT operations have resumed using Filter Wheel 1 for high-cadence
filter switching. This wheel contains thin filters (Al-poly and
C-poly), as well as some of the thin/medium filters (Be-thin, Al-med,
and Be-med). The latter are particularly useful for active region
observations.
2010-Dec-8
The paper "Temperature distribution of a non-flaring active region
from simultaneous Hinode XRT and EIS observations", by Testa P.,
Reale F., Landi E., DeLuca, E.E., and Kashyap V., has recently been
accepted for publication in
The Astrophysical Journal. (Here's the link to the arXiv.org
entry:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1012.0346 .)
2010-Dec-1
The paper "Coronal Temperature Diagnostic Capability of the
Hinode/X-Ray Telescope Based on Self-Consistent Calibration", by
N. Narukage, T. Sakao, R. Kano, H. Hara, M. Shimojo, T. Bando, F.
Urayama, E. DeLuca, L. Golub, M. Weber, P. Grigis, J. Cirtain, and
S. Tsuneta, has recently been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical
Journal.
2010-Oct-28
The paper "The Role of Magnetic Topology in the Heating of Active Region Coronal Loops,"
by J.-Y. Lee, Graham Barnes, K.D. Leka, Katharine Reeves, K. Korreck, L. Golub, and E.E. DeLuca,
has recently been published in The Astrophysical Journal.
2010-Oct-21
Big News! XRT-CO Sabrina Savage (MSU) successfully
defended her PhD thesis!
Congratulations from the Hinode / XRT Team, Dr. Sabrina Savage!
2010-Oct-18 The Hinode Science Working Group (SWG) has announced that the Hinode-5 Science Meeting will be in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on October 11--14.
2010-Oct-18 XRT got nice observations of the M2.9 class flare at 19:02 UTC on 10/16, including pre-flare buffer images!
The XRT team has produced and released a substantial upgrade to the analysis software. This new release contains code that corrects for time dependent contamination of the XRT analysis filters and adjusts filter thicknesses to be consistent with the thorough analysis done by Narukage et al. (2010 Solar Physics, submitted). New tools for temperature and emission measure analysis are also included in this software release. Extensive documentation of these routines are contained in the program header information and descriptions of many of the XRT analysis tools are given in the XRT Analysis Guide (found at http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/resources/documents/XAG/XAG.pdf). All of the new software and associated data base files have been upload to the SolarSoftWare distributions site. Users of XRT data should be sure that their SSW IDL libraries are up to date.
Please send questions and report any bugs to xrt_manager [at] cfa.harvard.edu.
Note that the changes may take a day or two to percolate through SolarSoft.
Regards,
Kathy Reeves
XRT Project Scientist
2010-Sep-03 XRT image headers have a keyword, FLFLG, which indicates if the XRT flare flag has been set. The FLFLG keyword tells you if the XRT flare flag tripped but it does not tell you if XRT responded to the flare flag. As of reformatter version 1.52, beginning with images from about 2010/08/10 07:59, we have also added a new keyword, OBS_MODE, in order to indicate if XRT is running a flare mode program or a normal (quiet) mode program. This keyword is set to 'QT' if XRT is running a normal mode program and 'FL' if XRT is running in flare mode.
The OBS_MODE keyword does not exist in images processed before 2010/08/10, and the FLFLG keyword was not set correctly during a flare trigger in these prior images as well. We are working to update the XRT back catalog with correct information. In the meantime, the times when the XRT flare flag tripped, and information about whether or not XRT responded, can be found here: http://xrt.cfa.harvard.edu/missionops/flare_trigger_list/xrt_flare_flags.txt.
Please send any questions or concerns to xrt_manager_at_head.cfa.harvard.edu .
2010-Sep-03 The paper 'Multi-Stranded and Multi-Thermal Solar Coronal Loops: Evidence from Hinode X-Ray Telescope and EUV Imaging Spectrometer Data', by J.T. Schmelz, S.H. Saar, K. Nasraoui, V.L. Kashyap, M.A. Weber, E.E. DeLuca, and L. Golub, has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.
2010-Aug-20 The XRT Team has just released a new upgrade to the basic XRT calibration
program xrt_prep.pro. (It should appear in the SSW tree in the next
few days.) The new version allows the user without a
local XRT data archive to setup automatic copying over the web of
darks required for the best (default) dark subtraction. The new
version also reduces error messages when files are not found, and
uses 512x2048 "strip darks" to approximate 2048x2048 darks in the
calibration for more recent 1x1 binned data (as 2048x2048 1x1 binned
darks are now rare due to telemetry issues). See the program headers
for more details.
Comments, feedback, and bug reports regarding these routines may be
directed to this email address: xrt_manager_at_head.cfa.harvard.edu
2010-Aug-10 The paper 'Reconnection Outflows and Current Sheet Observed with Hinode/XRT in the 2008 April 9 "Cartwheel CME" Flare,' by S. Savage, D. McKenzie, K. Reeves, T. Forbes and D. Longcope has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. A preprint can be found at on the arXiv preprint server at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4758.
2010-July-26: A new X-Ray Picture of the Week is available! This movie shows AR11087 as it was observed coming around the East limb on July 09, 2010. This active region produced several C-class flares during its peak of activity from July 8-11th. It was also associated with CMEs observed by SOHO/LASCO on both July 8th and 9th. This movie shows one of the C-flares, pre and post-flare loop brightenings, as well as some hints of the ejected material that may have been observed by LASCO.
2010-July-11: XRT observed the July 11 2010 solar eclipse. This eclipse was visible from the South Pacific, and XRT/Hinode participated in joint observations with eclipse observers in The Cook Islands, French Polynesia, and Easter Island. A set XRT images from the eclipse can be found on the X-Ray Picture of the Week (XPOW) page.
2010-May-02: The 2010 Hinode/XRT team meeting will bring
together members of the Hinode teams and other scientific investigators
to discuss technical issues of XRT, scientific results, and plans
for future observations. The dates of the meeting are June 16
(Technical Discussion) and June 17-18 (Science Discussion), and the
location is Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana. The SOC
solicits your abstracts for this meeting. For additional information,
and the full announcement, please visit the meeting website at
http://solar.physics.montana.edu/HINODE/XRT/TeamMtg/.
2010-Mar-30: The calibration database for the CCD contamination layer has been updated; it is now current up to 2010-Feb-19. (This database is automatically accessed by the XRT SolarSoft code make_xrt_wave_resp.pro, which can be used to calculate the time-dependent effective areas.) Our intention is to update the database regularly after bake-outs. An improved analysis was used to recompute the layer thickness; users will note some changes in the computed thicknesses for data times before 2007-Sep-08.
2010-Jan-20: XRT observed the eclipse of Jan-15-2010. A movie of the moon eclipsing an active region can be found on the X-Ray Picture of the Day Page.
(2009-Dec-03)
XRT is currently operating Filter Wheel 1 in "stepper mode". FW1 is currently set to the Al-med position. Early next week, FW1 will be moved to the Open position until further notice.
(2009-Nov-13)
XRT observations have resumed at 2009-Nov-13, 0900 UT.
(2009-Nov-11)
IMPORTANT--- XRT observations are expected to resume on the Saturday timeline (2009-Nov-14).
(2009-Nov-03)
IMPORTANT--- XRT observations were halted on October 23, 2009, in order to perform some instrument tests. The date for resuming observations has not yet been set, and is pending the results of the testing.
(2007-Aug-30)
The XRT CCD has experienced some degradation due to contamination that appeared after a short CCD bake-out in July. The contamination is manifest by small (~5 pixel diameter) spots on the detector. The spots cover somewhat less than 4% of the CCD area.They are seen in G-band images and in the thinner x-ray filters (Al_mesh, Al_poly, Ti_poly, C_poly and Be_thin, with decreasing effect in the order listed). The origin of the contamination is not understood at this time.
The XRT team is modifying the software in the SSWIDL tree to give scientists two ways of analyzing XRT data taken after the contamination event:
(1) a "touch-up" program that will replace the affected pixels with an average signal from near-by unaffected pixels.
(2) a "bad-pixel" map that allows scientists to avoid using the affected pixels in their analysis.
The touch-up program is applied to the quick-look images that are being distributed to web-pages and should be used when constructing movies and studying morphological changes. This same program will be available as a switch to the XRT_PREP code that converts level 0 data to level 1 data.
The XRT team is working to develop a cleaning program that will preserve the photometric information available below the spots. This programs will be distributed to the XRT user community through the SSWIDL distribution.
In addition the XRT team will develop programs that correct for the decrease in "filter-dependent" transmission between Nov-2006 and July-2007 caused by the accumulation of contaminants on the CCD. These corrections are particularly important for scientists using XRT data to estimate temperatures (e.g. via filter ratios).
The XRT team has setup an email distribution for users of XRT data. To subscribe to this list send an email to: xrt_users-request@head.cfa.harvard.edu To reduce the amount of spam on this list, users are accepted by positive confirmation at SAO. Please include your signature file when requesting admission to this list. The XRT team will use the list to keep the community up-to-date on the latest analysis tools and developments. Users may use this list to ask questions about analysis, report bugs and discuss analysis techniques with other users. Email to this list will be archived at: xrt_users off the community page.