Since its launch in December 1995, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) mission has collected data about all aspects of the Sun. SOHO is a joint effort between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and it is the longest-operating mission to observe the Sun to date. 

SOHO streams heliophysics data to Earth in near-real time, with the latest images from several of its instruments available to view online. The last 48 hours of SOHO data are available as MPEG and animated GIF videos, helping users to see the Sun’s activity in motion. The longevity of the mission and its variety of instruments have led to greater understanding of topics such as solar cycles, solar wind, solar storms, and the Sun’s structure. 

In addition to enabling scientific discoveries about the Sun, SOHO has provided crucial data for comet researchers. SOHO’S Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph Experiment (LASCO) instrument has helped detect over 5,000 comets – more than any other astronomical mission to date, representing more than half of all known comets. 36,000 SOHO/LASCO images ideal for use in comet-related artificial intelligence and machine learning projects were made available to all as part of the Registry of Open Data project. 

Data from SOHO can be accessed through the SOHO website.