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Installing Sun-Centered Imaging Package

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Using a crane, engineers lower the SCIP - Sun Centered Imaging Package - into one of the twin STEREO observatories. SCIP is part of the larger Sun-Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI), led by the Naval Research Laboratory.

This suite of instruments will study the 3-D evolution of coronal mass ejections-the most energetic eruptions on the sun and primary cause of major geomagnetic storms-from their origin at the sun's surface through the corona and interplanetary medium to their eventual impact at Earth.

Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory