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.
The Sun Erupts
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Tingyu Gou
A fantastic eruption occurred at the solar northeast limb on 2023 October 6, captured by IRIS. As one can see in the upper part of the movie, a semi-circular loop expands and moves away from the solar surface rapidly. Shortly in a few minutes, only a small portion of the loop leg is visible in the field of view of the spacecraft. A resultant coronal mass ejection runs out into interplanetary space, accompanied by a significant amount of magnetic energy release and the ejection of solar plasmas. Also seen in the movie are frequent jets ejecting out near the limb, and numerous coronal rains falling back simultaneously, which makes the Sun very active.