Overview SOHO 10-year special SOHO’s ten-year triumph in unmasking the Sun Thanks to one of the most productive spacecraft ever built, scientists are far better acquainted with the star that lights our world and gives us life. Built for ESA by European industry, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) went into space on 2 December 1995. How to make the Sun transparent On the Sun’s visible surface, waves rise and fall like a gigantic ocean swell, every five minutes or so. A special set of instruments on SOHO, provided by US-led, French-led and Swiss-led teams, have targeted these waves and so opened up the Sun’s interior to inspection. Looking into the eye of the solar tiger The calm appearance of the Sun seen from Earth by visible light is deceptive. Our ancestors had hints that something more ferocious was going on, in the streaky atmosphere revealed during total eclipses of the Sun… The most amazing comet finder of all time Single-handedly, SOHO has almost doubled the count of known comets – that is to say, those which astronomers have ever properly tracked and recorded. Successors to SOHO Along with other space missions, including ESA’s four Cluster satellites and the ESA/NASA Ulysses spacecraft in orbit over the Sun’s poles, SOHO will take part in the International Heliophysical Year 2007. Last update: 2 December 2005