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.
More Than We Bargained For
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, SAO, Chad Madsen
The Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2015. The Mission: to examine a complex region of sunspots exhibiting some odd behavior. The Objective: to look for evidence of solar flares. IRIS routinely searches for solar flares, some of the most powerful phenomena in the solar system. They are sudden, explosive outpourings of massive amounts of energy pent up over time in the Sun's complex magnetic field. They are often found in and around regions where the Sun's magnetic field has buoyantly risen to its surface, much like a bunch of tangled pool noodles rising up to the surface of a pool. Occasionally, IRIS gets lucky and finds one of these events every now and then. However, for this particular observation, IRIS managed to capture eight individual flares! All but one are concentrated to a small region to the upper right of the giant sunspot near the center of the frame. Solar astronomers classify flares based on the amount of extremely energetic x-rays they emit. From least to most x-rays released, the classes are: A, B, C, M, and X. In this observation, we see four B flares and four C flares; not quite the biggest flares out their, but they are still certainly spectacles to watch. See if you can spot when they all occur! On top of the flares, we also see that the area of interest is a miasma of other bizarre energetic phenonema, such as small compact ultraviolet bursts, massive eruptions of solar material, and thin needle-like jets.