NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft, which launched in 2006, is passing between the sun and Earth on Saturday for the first Earth flyby of the nearly 17-year-old mission.
Four volunteers will live in NASA's Mars habitat for one year, helping the space center collect data for its first mission to the planet in outer space.The visit marks the first Earth flyby of the nearly 17-year-old mission.
The dual spacecraft mission provided the first stereoscopic – or multiple-perspective, allowing researchers to extract three-dimensional information from 2D images – view of our closest star. After both reached 180-degree separation in their orbits, the sun was seen as a complete sphere for the first time in 2011.
The spacecraft's lead on Earth has grown to one full revolution as it"laps" the Earth in our orbit around the sun. NASA missions near EarthIt will once again combine views to achieve stereoscopic vision, synthesizing its views with NASA and the European Space Agency's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
A Boeing Delta 2 rocket lifts off from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station carrying NASA's STEREO spacecraft at Cape Canaveral, Florida, October 26, 2006.Scientists taking advantage of the opportunity to test a new theory that coronal loops aren't what they appear to be and are identifying active regions with the aim of revealing 3D information about their structure that is usually lost in 2D images.
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