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.
Series of small solar flares in AR 13633
Credit: IRIS, LMSAL/NASA, Milan Gosic (LMSAL/BAERI)
During the second week of April, IRIS monitored active region AR 13633 and observed multiple small flares and eruptions. A portion of the activity in AR 13633 is captured in a movie made from observations taken on April 12, 2024. The movie displays a series of sudden flashes of light, which are the small flares. Moreover, it also shows newly emerging magnetic fields, which rise through the solar atmosphere along the polarity inversion line. This line is a curve that separates positive and negative polarities of magnetic flux (not visible in the movie and is located below the chromospheric and transition region material). As the newly emerging magnetic fields interact with the ambient, preexisting magnetic fields, numerous eruptions and brightenings occur along magnetic field lines that connect opposite polarity magnetic features.