The eyes have it!

As Halloween approaches, so do a new active region and one official sunspot that bear an eerie resemblance to two glowing eyes on a carved pumpkin. These were observed by the STEREO (Behind) spacecraft in the 284 wavelength of extreme UV light (Oct. 12, 2008). We have not seen two active regions for a long time. The magnetic orientation of the sunspot and positions of both make them appear to belong to the new solar cycle. Notice in the video how the right "eye" emerges as the sun's rotation brings the "left" eye around. STEREO (Behind) can spot these regions before SOHO (with its position near the Sun-Earth line of sight) because it is trailing Earth and able to see more of the Sun before we and SOHO do.

• 284eyes_best.mov - (35.6 mb)   
• 284eyes_512.mov - (1.13 mb)   
• 284eyes_512.mpg - (3.93 mb)   
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