Japan’s newly-launched Hinode spacecraft has captured its first images of the Sun. Formerly known as Solar-B, the spacecraft launched on September 22, and opened its instruments to space on October 23, 2006. The images show granules on the Sun’s surface, each of which is thousands of kilometres across. Over the course of the next month, mission controllers will continue to put the spacecraft through its paces. They expect to release their first scientific data in December.
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2006/02nov_firstlight/