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 eruption behind the Sun
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Tiago Pereira
On Feb 16, 2023, IRIS captured a rare and powerful eruption from a solar active region. The solar rotation meant that this region was no longer directly visible, but instead was behind the edge of the Sun. IRIS was following its activity and observed a sudden eruption of hot material, possibly associated with a coronal mass ejection (which was not pointed towards Earth). The material gets ejected from the solar surface at speeds exceeding 200 km per second.