For the First Time In Human History We Have a View of the Entire Sun

The current mission will continue for another eight years before STEREO A and B switch places on the far side of the Sun, and begin again. [NASA - Thanks, Alex]

Send an email to Jack Loftus, the author of this post, at jloftus@gizmodo.com.

Until today, NASA was only able to directly view the Earth-facing side of the Sun. We could see solar storms as they happened, but not necessarily as they developed. Now, thanks to STEREO, we can see all sides simultaneously.

Our limited view was due to the fact that the Sun's roughly 27-day rotation hid the far side from our current crop of observational instruments, like the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. The SDO and its companion the Michelson Doppler Imager, while invaluable, can only produce a reconstruction of the activity on the far side of the Sun./.../