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.
Prominence bubbles
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Vanessa Polito
On July 8th 2020, IRIS observed a quiescent prominence on the east limb. Prominences are fascinating phenomena that occur in the solar atmosphere characterized by cold and dense plasma which is suspended in the hot and dilute solar corona. Quiescent prominences can be observed for several days and typically show swirling dynamic motions and, sometimes, dark "bubbles" rising from below. In this video, IRIS observed the formation of several of such bubbles. Studying prominence dynamics and the formation of these unstable bubbles is of crucial importance for understanding how coronal mass is ejected into our space environment.