Sun’s Most Powerful Solar Flare of the Year
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of an M6.5 class flare at 3:16 am EDT on April 11, 2013. This image shows a combination of light in wavelengths of 131 and 171 Angstroms. Image © NASA/SDO
Fiery Looping Rain on the Sun
Eruptive events on the Sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material (called a coronal mass ejection – CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. Watch the video…
Magnetic Loops on the Sun
This image of magnetic loops (like flux ropes) on the sun, captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). It has been processed to highlight the edges of each loop to make the structure more clear. Image © NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO
The brilliant Power of Earth’s Magnetosphere
A video from NASA showing the agency’s data visualization skills, with the creation of the animation of Sun’s powerful coronal mass ejections and their interactions with the Earth’s magnetosphere and climate.
Most spectacular Solar eruption (video)
The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm and a spectacular coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7, 2011. The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface as this image, taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows.
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Electric Valentine
Although they’ve been together for about 4.5 billion years, the sun and Earth still seem to have a downright electric relationship, based on a colorful show of northern lights seen on Valentine’s Day.
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Sun’s Magnetic Map
The Sun’s corona is threaded with a complex network of magnetic fields, and this amazing new image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the magnetic field lines associated with a coronal hole that is now turning to face Earth.
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