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To Sample the Sun

To Sample the Sun
To Sample the Sun Even though humans have watched the Sun throughout our existence, we still don't know exactly what it's made of. The Genesis mission, to launch in 2001, will attempt to find out. In this image from the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), we see features a few thousand kilometers above the visible surface, at temperatures between 900,000 and 1 million kelvins (1.6 to 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit). SOHO is watching the Sun from Earth orbit, while Genesis will collect samples nearer to the Sun and return them to Earth. SOHO EIT Consortium, NASA / ESA