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.
Two-ribbon flare
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA
On 1-August-2014, IRIS observed an M1.5 class flare visible at the beginning of the movie. Such a sudden release of magnetic energy produces energetic particles in the upper solar atmosphere that then move downwards along magnetic field lines towards the chromosphere. As a result, bright ribbons are formed. Thanks to IRIS, we can see here the formation of two such post-flare ribbons. Myriad of bright pixels closer to the end of the movie are caused by high energy particles collected by our CCD camera as IRIS was passing through the Earth's radiation belts.