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.
Narrow ribbons in a C class flare
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, IRIS planner: Vanessa Polito
On May 8th 2021, IRIS observed both ribbons of a C8.6 class flare at the north-east limb of the Sun. The active region that produced the flare was being monitored by the IRIS planners since it became visible on the east limb, and it produced a few C and B class, as well as a M-class flare on May 7th. In this movie, we can observe two peculiarly narrow and elongated structures, the flare ribbons, simultaneously lightening up as a response to some type of fast and impulsive heating mechanism. What is causing the ribbon brightening and the flare energy release is still a bit of a mystery, that IRIS spectroscopic observations like this one might help to unravel.