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.
C-Class Flare on the Limb
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Jenna Samra
In this movie of a C-class flare from July 21, 2022, we observe the solar atmosphere at two very different temperatures. The bright, well-defined material being ejected from the Sun is relatively cool (tens of thousands of Kelvin), while the faint, diffuse material in the background is around ten million Kelvin. The cooler temperatures are characteristic of the Sun's transition region, while 10 MK is hotter than even the quiet corona. These high temperatures are measured most commonly during solar flares.