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.
Twisted Solar Prominence
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Jake Parker
This large, bright structure extending beyond the solar surface is called a prominence. A prominence is a feature in the Sun's magnetic field filled with hot plasma. The plasma, composed of hot charged particles, is forced to follow the magnetic field lines and therefore traces the beautiful twisted structure of the solar magnetic field.