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.
Solar prominence observed by IRIS and Parker Solar Probe
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Milan Gosic
Solar prominences are structures of cool and dense ionized gas visible in the solar corona. The movie here shows a prominence observed by IRIS and Parker Solar Probe (PSP) on Feb 1, 2020. By looking at the chromosphere and transition region, IRIS provides crucial information about the heating of the solar atmosphere. With PSP that is focused on the solar corona and processes driving the solar wind, IRIS is giving us a chance to understand the flow of energy and plasma through the solar atmosphere and beyond, through the heliosphere, to ultimately decipher the Sun-Earth connection.