This image of the sun shows a very large sunspot. This particular sunspot is about six times wider than the Earth. We'll take a look at some more sunspots on the next few pages.
Image Credit: NASA/SOHO/AFP/Getty Images
These sunspot clusters produced a coronal mass ejection, or solar blast, that hit the Earth in 2003. Sunspots have been known to affect the Earth. Check out one that interfered with Earth communications on the next page.
Image Credit: Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) via Getty Images
This image shows two giant sunspots that caused intense space weather during 2003. Check out another image of sunspots on the next page.
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The black dots are sunspots. Find out how sunspots are related to temperature on the next page.
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Sunspots on the surface of the sun, marking areas of lower temperature that their surroundings. Next, you can see how to safely view sunspots.
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A Coude optical refractor enables this astronomer to observe sunspots on the surface of the sun. On the next few pages you can see some amazing images of solar flares.
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A solar flare that was captured in November of 2003. You can check out another image of this solar event on the next page.
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Another view of the November 2003 solar flare. On the next page, you can see an amazing image of the largest solar flare ever recorded!
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The sun blasted the largest solar flare on record on April 4, 2001. A solar flare that was directed right at the Earth is featured on the next page.
Image Credit: NASA/Newsmakers
A massive solar flare that was directed almost straight at the Earth. This flare sent electrically charged gas toward our planet.
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NASA's Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) satellites provided the first three-dimensional images of the sun. Scientists were able to see structures in the sun's atmosphere in three dimensions. This helped them better understand solar physics and, for that reason, improved their space weather forecasting. This image is of the sun's south pole. Material can be seen erupting off of the lower-right side.
Image Credit: NASA
This false-color image is a composite of three images from the space-based Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint mission between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA). All three images were shot in extreme ultraviolet light, but each displays a different temperature range in the upper solar atmosphere: red represents 2 million degrees C, green 1.5 million and blue 1 million (3.6 million, 2.7 million, and 1.8 million degrees F, respectively). If this were shot in visible light instead of ultraviolet, the bright, active regions strewn across the solar disk would instead appear as dark clumps of sunspots.
Image Credit: NASA
A collaborative mission between Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe called Hinode captured this picture of the sun's chromosphere in 2007. It shows the filamentary nature of the plasma connecting regions of different magnetic polarity. The chromosphere is a thin layer of solar atmosphere that lies between the visible surface, the photosphere and the corona. Next, we'll look at solar prominences.
Image Credit: JAXA/NASA
A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas that is held just above the surface by the sun's magnetic field. Showy prominences can sometimes be observed just beyond the edge of the sun. To get some idea of the size of these things, realize that Earth would easily fit below the prominence on the left. An inactive prominence usually lasts around a month, and it could erupt into a coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs expel hot gas out into the solar system. Next, we'll see a solar prominence that's just plain enormous.
Image Credit: Stefan Seip (AstroMeeting)
Here we get an amazing look at a huge solar prominence shaped like a handle or the universe's largest golf club face.
Image Credit: NASA
Here we see a large sunspot region unleashing a large flare, caught in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft. The bright flare (with several smaller flashes) was followed by a large coronal mass ejection that hit Earth with a geomagnetic storm two days later. The long vertical streak in this image is just an aberration caused by the brightness overwhelming the SDO sensors.
Image Credit: NASA
Is something devouring the sun? Hardly. On February 21, 2012, the moon moved in between NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and the sun, producing a partial solar eclipse from space. A partial solar eclipse from space only happens a few times a year.
Image Credit: NASA
Here we see another flare captured by the SDO in January of 2012. This one was not considered as strong as some others, but it nonetheless caused the biggest solar radiation storm since 2003. The biggest flares, called "X-class" flares, are the largest explosions in the solar system. When they occur, loops tens of times the size of Earth jump off the sun's surface when the sun's magnetic fields cross over each other and reconnect. NASA says that in the biggest events, this reconnection process can produce as much energy as a billion hydrogen bombs.
Image Credit: NASA
The SDO captured this image of a flare on March 13, 2012. The picture is displayed in the 131 Angstrom wavelength -- scientists consider that wavelength especially good for seeing solar flares, and it's typically colorized in teal.
Image Credit: NASA
Speaking of wavelengths, here's an image of the sun shown in various wavelengths in various temperatures. From left to right, we first see the 6,000 degrees C (10,832 degrees F) photosphere, with various sunspots on the surface of the sun. Then we see in a bronze hue the region between the chromosphere and the corona, at about 1 million degrees C (1.8 million degrees F). In extreme ultraviolet light, the active regions of the chromosphere appear lighter. Lastly, we see a composite area of three different wavelengths showing temperatures up to 2 million degrees C (3.6 million degrees F).
Image Credit: NASA
Sunspots are cooler, darker areas of intense magnetic activity on the sun, and they're usually the source of solar storms. NASA took observations of the sun's lower atmosphere in extreme ultraviolet light, then digitally peered down through the atmosphere to the surface seen in filtered light. They were able to see the correlation of the sunspots to the brighter active regions above the surface. The loops above the sunspot regions reveal magnetic field lines pushing out from the Sun.
Image Credit: NASA
Here we see another fascinating solar image composite shot in three different wavelengths in extreme ultraviolet light. Combined, they show solar activity from a period of almost three months. As before, each wavelength is shown in a different color (the hottest is red, followed by green and then blue). The brightest areas are active regions, which have stronger magnetic fields than the surrounding area.
Image Credit: NASA
In this rather frightening picture, you can see a large coronal hole. Shot in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 193 Angstroms, the coronal hole extends from the top of the Sun to nearly halfway down. Coronal holes are magnetically open areas, from which high-speed solar wind streams out into space. They appear darker in this wavelength because there is simply less of the material that is being imaged -- in this case ionized iron.
Image Credit: NASA
In the cryptically named region 11195 of the sun, almost two dozen flares sprang up in a bit more than two days. This image is a still from that period. The flare in this picture appears as a rapid brightening. The faint vertical lines in the image are just a reaction of the imaging mechanism in the telescope to the blindingly bright light. What we actually see here is ionized iron heated to more than 6 million degrees. Next, we'll see a solar filament.
Image Credit: NASA
In the lower-third of this image, we can see an elongated, dark solar filament (appearing as reddish-purple, snakelike line). Filaments are cooler clouds of gases suspended above the sun's surface by magnetic forces. This particular filament runs about one third of the way around the sun.
Image Credit: NASA
This purple picture maps the magnetic field lines coming from the sun onto an extreme ultraviolet image taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The magnetic lines are thickest around active (brighter) solar regions.
Image Credit: NASA
Here we see a large flare near the edge of the sun. It sent out a mass of erupting plasma that was observed swirling and twisting over a 90-minute period. Once again, the SDO was on the case to capture the event. Some of the material was tossed out into space and other portions of the eruption fell back to the surface. The Solar Dynamics Observatory caught another great shot in our next picture.
Image Credit: NASA
SDO got a good sidelong look at the ever-changing magnetic field lines looping over a particularly active solar region. Such regions can generate “space weather” effects. Next up, we'll get a close-up view of a solar prominence eruption.
Image Credit: NASA
The sun might look like a peaceful disc of warmth back here on Earth, but up close it's a violent mess. This eruption shows what happens when a solar prominence becomes unstable and blasts out into space in a twisting motion.
Image Credit: NASA
We'll close out our gallery with a little compare and contrast, as taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. What we see here in the two frames is a sunspot group as it first emerges (top image) and how the area looked less than three days later (bottom image). Sunspots are nearly always changing, but NASA scientists were struck by the speed of the growth of this one. Sunspots are cooler, darker regions generated by magnetic forces beneath the Sun's surface. And, just in case you were wondering how big these spots can get, the spot on the left of the group at bottom is easily larger than Earth.
Now that you've seen out sunspot and solar flare pictures, check out our list of 10 astronomical discoveries made without a telescope!
Image Credit: NASA
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