Materials from NASCOM. Created by the European Space Agency and NASA.
UVCS (Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer) onboard SOHO is the name of the telescope used to take these photos.
The purpose of the UVCS mission is to provide a detailed description of the extended solar corona that can be used to address a broad range of scientific questions regarding the nature of the solar corona and the generation of the solar wind.
UVCS makes measurements of the solar corona between 1.3 and 12 solar radii from sun center with high spectral and spatial resolution. The instrument creates an artificial solar eclipse in ultraviolet light, blocking out the bright light from the solar disk and allowing observation of the less intense (by several orders of magnitude) light from the extended corona.
Also, the unresolved microscopic speeds (along the line of sight) for O VI are much higher than for H I and protons. Neither thermal equilibrium nor common transverse wave motions can explain this.