'This means the line is, in fact, an enormous swatch of colder material hovering in the sun's atmosphere, the corona,' Nasa said.įilaments can float sedately for days before disappearing. Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SOD, shows colder material as dark and hotter material as light. Stretched out, that line – or solar filament as scientists call it – would be more than 533,000 miles long, and longer than 67 Earths lined up in a row. It shows a vast filament of material snaked across the lower half of the sun on Feb.10, 2015, forming a dark 'smile' line. ![]() Just days ago, after Hubble captured an amazing image of a 'smiling' galaxy, Nasa has revealed an equally emotive picture of the sun looking sad. Scientists are looking at that data now to see if they can determine what circumstances might have led to flares eruptions alone. In this case, the sun produced only flares and no CMEs, which, while not unheard of, is somewhat unusual for flares of that size. ![]() They can occur by themselves or can be accompanied by what's called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, in which a giant cloud of solar material erupts off the sun, achieves escape velocity and heads off into space. Solar flares are bursts of light, energy and X-rays. Five years into its mission, SDO continues to send back tantalizing imagery to incite scientists' curiosity.įor example, in late 2014, SDO captured imagery of the largest sun spots seen since 1995 as well as a torrent of intense solar flares.
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