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.
A large surge
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Dr. Alex Pietrow (AIP)
The solar atmosphere is very dynamic as it is influenced by the magnetic fields around it. Changes in these fields can cause dramatic events like solar flares or large eruptions as we see here. Note how the material shoots up in a loop and then falls back down, this is because it is following the magnetic field lines!