The sun takes about 27 days to rotate once, so it was a challenge to guess what type of solar activity was happening until it was basically too late. The new STEREO satellite can now help us predict and view what’s going on around the sun all at once…

Launched in October 2006, STEREO traces the flow of energy and matter from the sun to Earth. It also provides unique and revolutionary views of the sun-Earth system. STEREO has given us the first view of the entire sun on February 6, 2011 and when coupled with SDO, will give us complete views of the sun’s entire surface and atmosphere for the next 8 years.