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.
A solar flare is triggered
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Tiago M. D. Pereira
On the 16th of August 2020, IRIS observed the triggering of a solar flare. The movie shows a young active region, magnetic activity triggers small explosions that culminate on a much larger flare. In the middle of the frame, we see increased brightenings in the first half of the movie. At about 16:40, these evolve into a much large scale, and a flare is triggered. After a burst, the very bright two sides (called ribbons), expand sideways, heating a larger part of the atmosphere.