Title:[2004] Total eclipse of the Sun in 1970 Caption:The solar corona during the total eclipse of the Sun on 7 March 1970. Copyright: Credit: National Optical Astronomy Observatories

Title:[3010] Outer solar corona in false color from Skylab Caption: False-color emphasizes the structure of the outer solar corona as seen from Skylab in 1973. From this orbiting space station, the outer corona was monitored continuously for a period of 9 months with a coronagraph that blocked out the light of the Sun's disk. Copyright: Credit:NASA/JPL

Title:[3011] Coronal spikes in false color from Solar Maximum Mission, June 1980 Caption:False-color reveals the density and structure of the solar corona in this image from the orbiting Solar Maximum Mission in 1980. The coronal spike extending from the densest (dark blue) part of the corona could be detected over 1.6 million km (1 million miles). Copyright: Credit:NASA/JPL

Title:[3015] Coronal transient and eruptive prominence on the Sun from Skylab Caption:A coronal transient (light blue) ballooning outwards from the Sun. It was propelled by an eruptive prominence, shown in the ultraviolet image of the Sun which has been superimposed over the dark circle of the coronagraph used to image the corona. Copyright: Credit:NASA/JPL

Title:[3019] The Sun in soft X-rays from the Yohkoh orbiting observatory Caption:This image of the Sun was taken on 24 January 1992 with the soft X-ray Telescope on the Japan/US/UK orbiting Yohkoh mission. It reveals the three-dimensional structure of the hot corona across the whole of the Sun's disk. The bright areas are regions where hot gas at temperatures of over a million degrees K are trapped by the Sun's magnetic field. The dark areas are coronal holes, which are the sources of the solar wind – streams of high speed particles – which flows past Earth and through the solar system at about 700 km per second. Copyright: Credit:NASA

Title:[3009] Nearly total annular eclipse of the Sun, 30 May 1984 Caption:The annular eclipse of the Sun on 30 May 1984 left only a very thin ring of the Sun visible at mid-eclipse. This image was made using a semicircular neutral-density filter over the eastern (left) half of the Sun. The unfiltered half of the image shows the effect known as "Baily's beads", caused by the Sun shining through valleys on the Moon's limb, as well as prominences and part of the corona. Copyright:Dennis di Cicco Credit:Dennis di Cicco