Tag Archives: Solar Dynamics Observatory

X-rays from the Sun

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Sunspots are cooler than the surrounding solar surface because the magnetic fields that create them reduce convective heating from the Sun’s interior. However, sometimes regions in the corona above sunspots can be hundreds of times hotter. The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) satellite is being used to investigate this phenomenon. This false color image shows the Sun in ultraviolet light (red ) as seen by the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory . X-ray imagery (green and blue) detected by NuSTAR has been superimposed, highlighting regions of extremely high temperature.

Image Credit: NASA

A Class-X Solar Flare

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The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare, the bright flash at the Sun’s lower center, at 1535 UTC (11:35 am ET) yesterday. This image was taken in extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares, shown here in teal.

According to the NOAA Space Weather website, the flare caused a significant glitch in shortwave radio communications here on Earth

Image Credit: NASA

A Sunquake

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The Sun has quakes—earthquake-like waves tha ripple through it. This is a movie of a sunquake on 30 July, 2011. The left frame shows the active region of a solar flare as seen in visible light (amber) as well as in extreme ultraviolet (red). The right frame shows the ripples on Sun’s outlying surface for up to 42 minutes after the onset of the flare, which is marked by the label “IP” for impulsive flare on the time scale.
Video Credit: NASA

Towering Coils

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This video clip covers about 36 hours of Solar activity as seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in January, 2014.  A large active region sported tall coils of magnetic field lines that stretched many times the size of Earth above the Sun. When viewed in extreme ultraviolet light, the field lines are revealed as particles move along them. Some lines connect with another active region that has rotated out of view. This close-up also shows darker, cooler plasma just above the surface being tugged back and forth by magnetic forces.

Video Credit: NASA

A Hole on the Sun

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coronalholeThe Solar Dynamics Observatory took these images of a large coronal hole on the Sun last week. Coronal holes are the source of a high-speed wind of solar particles that streams off the Sun some three times faster than the normal solar wind. It’s not clear what causes coronal holes, but they correlate to areas on the Sun where magnetic fields flow away from the surface without looping back as they do elsewhere.

Image Credit: NASA

Magnetic Fields

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Magnetic field lines on the Sun arch and twist above active regions and occasionally reach out to connect to each other. In this time lapse video taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the field lines are revealed in extreme ultraviolet light by charged particles that spiral along them.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_CNSXe0-Cw]

Video Credit: NASA

Towering Coils

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The video clip covers about 36 hours of Solar activity as seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on 15 and 15 January, 2014.  A large active region sported tall coils of magnetic field lines that stretched many times the size of Earth above the Sun. When viewed in extreme ultraviolet light, the field lines are revealed as particles move along them. Some lines connect with another active region that has rotated out of view. This close-up also shows darker, cooler plasma just above the surface being tugged back and forth by magnetic forces.

Video Credit: NASA

Solar Flare

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The Sun just threw a filament. At the end of last month, a long standing solar filament suddenly erupted producing an energetic Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). The filament had been held up for days by the Sun’s magnetic field, and the timing of the eruption was unexpected. The resulting explosion shot electrons and ions outward, some of which arrived at Earth three days later and smacked into Earth’s magnetosphere. The result was visible as aurorae. Loops of plasma surrounding an active region can be seen above the erupting filament in this ultraviolet image taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.

If you missed that auroral display, don’t worry. Over the next two years, the Sun will be experiencing a solar maximum of activity which promises to produce more CMEs that induce more Earthly auroras. The active Sun will also improve HF and low VHF propagation, much to the pleasure of ham radio operators like me.

Image Credit: NASA