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.
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20 Jul 2016
Pop, pop, pop. Three C-flares in new active region 12567
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Charles Kankelborg, Montana State University
What is a solar flare? The simplest definition is a brightening on the Sun. The brightening is seen in spectral lines across a wide range of wavelengths, from visible to X-ray. We classify flares by brightness in x-rays, in ascending order, in powers of ten: A, B, C, M, X. This sequence of IRIS ultraviolet images, obtained during coordination with the Swedish Solar Telescope in LaPalma, captured three C-class flares in the course of a few hours on Monday, July 18. We were targeting a region of emerging magnetic flux situated to the east of AR12565.