Nine Years Of Euv Bright Points

We discuss early results derived from an algorithm that automates the detection, cataloging, and analysis of extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) “bright points” (BP) from 9 years of data acquired by the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The algorithm relies upon the computation of a map of “intensity significance”; this then contains the location of the EUV BPs. By mapping the location of BPs in each image and linking them through long sequences of EIT images we can describe the temporal and spatial variations of the 1.3× 10⁸ EUV BPs observed by SOHO to date. We suggest that there is a considerable amount of physical information about the solar coronal plasma that can be readily gleamed from the BP detection database. In this paper we discuss only a small portion of the possible correlations, but we point to the possibility of BP lifetime distributions that are well described by modified power-laws; the components of which vary with the different temperature filters and with time over the present solar cycle. Dedicated to the memory of John (Ian) Hamilton (1938–2004).