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.
Evolution of AR 13006
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Milan Gosic
Throughout the second week of May, IRIS was observing AR 13006. This active region brought a huge amount of magnetic flux to the solar surface. The newly emerging fields were perturbing the preexisting magnetic configuration, causing numerous eruptions. Part of the AR 13006 activity can be seen in the movie created from the observations recorded on 12-May-2022. There are multiple smaller solar flares (sudden flashes of light), indicating magnetic energy that is being released and transferred into heating of the chromosphere and corona. Many loops connecting the opposite polarity magnetic features are also being activated. The newly emerging magnetic fields are hidden below the solar structures visible in the movie.