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What it is : A fiery landscape painting on the airfoil of the Sunday
Where it is : About 93 million mile ( 150 million kilometers ) from Earth
Plasma eruptions burst out of the sun in this ultra-detailed look at our star’s outer atmosphere.
When it was released : May 2 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : A golden meadow stretch out to the horizon , stark with fluffy moss , distant rain — and elephantine plasma explosions loom larger than Earth itself .
It ’s just another day onthe sun .
Captured in September 2023 by theEuropean Space Agency ’s ( ESA ) Solar Orbiter , this tight - up view of our star bear witness the chaotic modulation zone between the sun ’s chromosphere and corona , the two outmost layer of the sun ’s standard pressure . Brighter areas of the figure ( also available as a short video ) represent temperatures of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit ( 1 million degree Celsius),according to ESA , with ice chest regionslooking relatively darkas they take in radiation .
This gilded panorama is a miniature gallery of extreme solar phenomena . Fuzzy , lace - similar feature in the bottom left of the trope are " coronal moss " — structures that imprint at the bases of gigantic plasm loops that ride the sun ’s magnetic - field bloodline luxuriously into the solar atmosphere .
concern : Eclipse from space : course of 2024 and 2017 occultation collide over US in new orbiter image
Near the horizon , loom bodily structure call spicules dancing and wave , reach thousands of miles above the Dominicus ’s surface . A dark region loom over the middle left of the footage showscoronal rainfall — heavy blob of plasma tumbling back down to the sun after rising high on coronal loops . And at roughly 22 seconds into the picture , an enormous eruption of plasma — stretching taller than Earth — rears its fiery head .
— quad photo of the week : Hubble catches a ' baseball galax ' with a ignominious hole heart—35 jaw - dropping James Webb Space Telescope fancy
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Solar boast like these resultant from disturbances in the sunshine ’s tangled charismatic - field lines . Magnetic disturbances become more common near the superlative of the Sunday ’s 11 - year body process bike , bid solar level best — a period thatscientists think may be occur right now . Even back in September , the ramp - up in solar activity was manifest .
Solar Orbiter catch this fiery footage from about 27 million miles ( 43 million km ) away from the sun — or about one - third Earth ’s average aloofness from our star , according to ESA . Fortuitously , NASA’sdeath - defying Parker Solar Probeswooped within 4.5 million international nautical mile ( 7.2 million km ) of the sun the same day , allowing the two spacecraft to monitor these uttermost solar features and measure their irradiation output at the same clip .
