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.
Looking Down the Funnel of a Tornado
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Chad Madsen, SAO
This video shows the peculiar aftermath of a solar flare. What you are looking at is the leading sunspot of an active region on the Sun. Active regions are areas on the Sun where its magnetic field has breached the surface and is causing all sorts of mayhem. In this case, the complex, tangled magnetic field emerging through the surface can't handle the tension anymore and suddenly and violently emits an incredible amount of energy in the form of a solar flare visible near the sunspot. Although flares are not uncommon, what happens as a result of this particular flare certainly is. When the flare goes off, it blasts a large mass of overlying cool material outward from the surface. The cool material, appearing as dark, wispy strands, are trapped on a spiraling magnetic field structure above the active region, producing a remarkable whirlwind as it escapes. It appears as if we're looking straight down into the funnel of a raging tornado. This event exemplifies the bizarre union of beauty and violence that comes to define the incredible solar atmospheric environment.