IRIS Movie of the Day
At least once a week a movie of the Sun taken by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) is posted by one of the scientists operating the instrument.
Powerful flare at the solar limb
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Tiago M. D. Pereira, UiO
IRIS observes the outcome of a large flare at the solar limb. The flare itself, in the far left at the beginning of this movie, was barely covered by IRIS. However, moments later the whole limb "lights up" because the flare causes extreme heating. In time, more structures are seen above the limb, starting with a diffuse cloud of plasma at millions of degrees and later curled magnetic field loops are visible through plasma that is cooling down. These resemble waterfalls of cool plasma that falls back into the surface, and persist for many hours after the flare.