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.
Layers of the Sun's Atmosphere Surrounding a Sunspot at the Limb
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Kathy Reeves (SAO)
This movie scans through the IRIS Mg II h and k lines, showing the different layers of the atmosphere for a small sunspot near the west limb. The wings of the lines show the lower and more uniform photosphere, while the line cores show the higher and more structured chromosphere. The Earth is shown in the lower right corner for scale.