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.
Spectacular Eruption at the Limb
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Lucas Guliano
With as much data as IRIS has collected in its lifetime, it takes a lot for new data to impressive the observing team. But on 2022/09/23 at around 10:30UT, IRIS was pointing right at a large eruption that occurred at the solar limb. Though not associated with a major flare, a huge amount of material was ejected from the Sun and out into space. The event builds slowly with a large prominence swirling around before the eruption occurs and it lifts free from the solar disk. By putting the IRIS scans next to multiple wavelengths of AIA data, we can see the full extent of this major event and see that IRIS captured it perfectly. It takes a lot of skill (and a lot of luck) to get IRIS right on an event like this, but when it happens the results are spectacular!