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.
Dynamics in a quiet prominence
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Vanessa Polito
The IRIS slit captured a fascinating small quiet prominence which occured on the east limb of the Sun on March 19, 2020. How these clouds of cool material are formed and remain suspended in the hot solar atmosphere is still not well understood. The prominence shows a lot interesting dynamics, such as flows and twisting motions. Spectroscopic and imaging observations with IRIS, like the one presented here, are crucial to understand the puzzling nature of prominences.