coronal rain tagged posts

‘Raindrops in the Sun’s corona’: New adaptive optics shows stunning details of our star’s atmosphere

This image of a prominence above the solar surface is a snapshot of a 4-minute time-lapse movie that reveals its rapid, fine, and turbulent restructuring with unprecedented detail. The Sun’s fluffy-looking surface is covered by “spicules”, short-lived plasma jets, whose creation is still the subject of scientific debate. The streaks on the right of this image are coronal rain falling down onto the Sun’s surface. This image was taken by the Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory using the new coronal adaptive optics system Cona. The image shows the hydrogen-alpha light emitted by the solar plasma. The image is artificially colorized, yet based on the color of hydrogen-alpha light, and darker color is brighter light. Credit: Schmidt et al./NJIT/NSO/AURA/NSF

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