ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Solar and Heliospheric Observatory

Okay kiddo, have you ever heard of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO for short? It’s a really cool satellite that was launched by NASA and the European Space Agency back in 1995.

You know how we have the sun in our sky during the day? Well, SOHO was sent up into space to study the sun all day, every day. It’s kind of like a super spy that can watch the sun from space and keep an eye on what it’s up to.

The sun is always doing different things, like sending out giant flares of energy and creating big, bright spots on its surface. SOHO is like a special camera that can capture all these events so that scientists can study them and learn more about our closest star.

But SOHO doesn’t just study the sun. It also looks at how the sun’s energy affects everything around it, like the solar wind. The solar wind is like a big stream of particles that the sun sends out into space. SOHO can see how the solar wind moves and how it affects things like Earth’s magnetic field.

This information is really important because it helps us understand more about the sun and how it affects us on Earth. For example, some of the things SOHO has taught us can help us protect our power grids and communication systems from the effects of the solar wind.

So, in summary, SOHO is a satellite that spies on the sun and the things it sends out into space so that scientists can learn more about it and how it affects us on Earth.