I caught this image this morning on the SDO site…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out several tens of thousands of miles…the hooked loop at the end could easily encircle the entire Earth! This image is from about 11am or so, within a couple of hours the structure had…
Category: sun
A Pair of Flares
A twisting pair of prominences erupt almost 50,000 miles above the surface of the sun in this image from SDO, taken today, October 21, 2010. This is a composite of two imaging wavelength filter images (AIA 304 and 171), combined to show surface (photosphere) detail as well as lower atmosphere (chromosphere) detail. The scale…
The Sun and the Moon
From an SDO image chosen as the Pick of the Week for October 15th, this shot is almost too cool to be real…but it is! As the New Moon passed between the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Sun, the spacecraft in geosynchronous orbit got a view of the Moon’s silhouetted disc passing across its normally-unobstructed…
Prominence Earth
A serpentine solar prominence snakes thousands of miles through space towards an unsuspecting Earth! This apocalyptic sci-fi scene is made up of two combined images of the sun from NASA’s SDO sapcecraft, acquired today September 25, 2010, superimposed and edited to show both surface (chromosphere) detail as well as coronal features, and an image of…
Pillar of Fire
Ok it’s not fire, it’s plasma, but it’s nevertheless a wonderful image by space photographer Alan Friedman showing a coronal ejection towering over 200,000 miles above the surface of the sun. It was taken on July 27, 2010. Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occur when particularly large magnetic loops filled with plasma “snap” and expel their…
Solar Maelstrom
A powerful sunspot creates a spinning whirlpool of magnetic activity around itself in this detail from an SDO image (AIA 304) taken today, June 24. Sunspots are darker areas on the sun’s surface (photosphere) where a “bubble” of magnetic fields have risen from the interior and “pushed aside” the hotter layers at the surface to…
As The Day Is Long
Happy Summer Solstice! A this is the day that the Earth’s northern hemisphere receives the longest amount of sunlight during the course of the year, I thought it only appropriate to feature a pic of the Sun! Above is a detail from a high-resolution image taken today by the Solar Dynamics Observatory showing some very…
Coronal Loops
Seen in extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, bright coronal loops erupt from the edges of a sunspot in this image, a detail of a larger image captured by the SDO spacecraft earlier today. (Click to see the full-sized version.) Coronal loops are plasma-filled “tubes” that arc upwards from the Sun’s surface and reconnect at both ends. They…
Ultra Magnetism
Revealed in extreme ultraviolet light, our sun’s looping magnetic field lines are visible (watch in HD!) in this video from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. The action spans a two-day period from June 6 – 7, 2010, and features two particularly magnetically-active regions on the sun’s surface. Superheated solar material is caught up in…
Fo Sizzle
A beautiful photo by Alan Friedman showing a solar prominence twisting high – as in, tens of thousands of miles high – above the surface of the Sun. This image was taken on June 2, 2010 through Friedman’s hydrogen alpha telescope. This allows us to see the complex texture of the Sun’s surface, called the…
Journey Into The Sun
Here’s a very informative segment about the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft (now offering continuously updating views of the Sun!) from KQED, the Northern California Public Broadcasting channel. Enjoy!
Solar Crossing
Another shining example of perfect timing and photographic expertise by Thierry Legault, this image shows the shuttle Atlantis as it somersaults in front of the International Space Station in order to have its underbelly checked out on May 16. Over 200 miles above the Earth, the ISS and Atlantis passed briefly in front of the…
Lights in the Dark 