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What it is : A fiery landscape painting on the surface of the sun
Where it is : About 93 million mi ( 150 million kilometer ) from Earth
Plasma eruptions burst out of the sun in this ultra-detailed look at our star’s outer atmosphere.
When it was give up : May 2 , 2024
Why it ’s so special : A golden hayfield stretches to the visible horizon , over with downy moss , aloof rainfall — and jumbo plasma burst towering larger than Earth itself .
It ’s just another twenty-four hour period onthe sun .
Captured in September 2023 by theEuropean Space Agency ’s ( ESA ) Solar Orbiter , this close - up eyeshot of our asterisk shows the disorderly changeover geographical zone between the Sunday ’s chromosphere and corona , the two outermost layers of the sun ’s ambiance . vivid areas of the image ( also usable as a short video ) represent temperature of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit ( 1 million degrees Celsius),according to ESA , with ice chest regionslooking comparatively darkas they absorb radiation .
This golden cyclorama is a miniature picture gallery of uttermost solar phenomena . Fuzzy , lace - alike feature film in the bottom left of the image are " coronal moss " — structures that form at the nucleotide of mammoth plasma loops that ride the sun ’s magnetic - field lines high into the solar atmosphere .
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Near the purview , towering structures called spicule dance and wave , reach 1000 of miles above the sun ’s surface . A dark region hovering over the middle left wing of the footage showscoronal rain — dense blobs of blood plasma tumbling back down to the sunshine after move up luxuriously on coronal loops . And at roughly 22 seconds into the video , an tremendous outbreak of blood plasma — stretching taller than Earth — put up its fiery head .
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Solar features like these result from disturbances in the sunlight ’s tangled magnetized - airfield lines . magnetised disturbance become more common near the peak of the sunshine ’s 11 - year activity cycle , called solar upper limit — a period thatscientists think may be occurring right on now . Even back in September , the wild leek - up in solar activity was observable .
Solar Orbiter charm this fiery footage from about 27 million miles ( 43 million km ) away from the sun — or about one - third Earth ’s middling distance from our star , accord to ESA . fortunately , NASA’sdeath - defy Parker Solar Probeswooped within 4.5 million miles ( 7.2 million km ) of the sun the same day , allowing the two spacecraft to monitor these extreme solar features and measure their radiation therapy output at the same time .
