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 Two-Ribbon Flare
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Jenna Samra
The IRIS movie at the top shows a small two-ribbon solar flare as it looks a few thousand kilometers above the surface of the Sun. The flare releases energy stored in the Sun's magnetic field, heating the plasma and forming the bright ribbons. Higher up in the solar atmosphere, bright loops span the two ribbons as they begin to fade. These post-flare loops trace out the reorganized magnetic field lines and are shown in the SDO/AIA image at the bottom.