1-154-863 - NASA/Oxford Science Archive/Heritage Images

False colour image of a solar flare from Skylab, 1973. Skylab, America's first space station launched on 14 May 1973, carried many scientific experiments. The biggest was the Apollo Telescope Mount which contained eight instruments to study the sun at various wavelengths. Skylab was visited by three 3 man crews between May 1973 and February 1974, the last of which set a new space endurance record of 84 days.