Science
Hinode
Catalogued as HINODE (SOLAR-B)
Solar Observatory · JAXA / NASA / ESA
Right now
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Hinode — Japanese for 'sunrise' — is a joint Japan-US-UK-Norway mission dedicated to understanding the Sun's magnetic field. Its high-resolution solar telescope can resolve features just 93 miles across on the Sun's surface, roughly the distance from New York to Boston. It discovered that the Sun's corona is heated by magnetohydrodynamic waves — waves in the magnetic field itself — solving a 60-year mystery about why the Sun's outer atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than its surface.
Its orbit
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbitcan appear as a fast-moving star at dawn or dusk
- Altitude
- 408–423 mi (657–681 km)
- Inclination
- 98.1°
- One orbit
- 98.0 minutes14.7 orbits a day
- NORAD ID
- 29479
- Int’l designator
- 2006-041A
- Launched
- 2006
Orbital elements from CelesTrak, as of 22 Sep 2026.