SDO Observes Massive Eruption, Scorching Rain - Part 2

A color-coded temperature movie of the eruption. Red and oranges are cool (60,000 K - 80,000 K); blues and greens are hot (1,000,000 - 2,200,000 K). The black "hair-like object" is a speck of dust on the CCD camera. Credit: SDO/AIA.

One of SDO's game-changing capabilities is temperature sensing. Using an array of ultraviolet telescopes called the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), the observatory can remotely measure the temperature of gas in the sun's atmosphere. Coronal rain turns out to be relatively cool—"only" 60,000 K. When the rains falls, it is supported, in part, by an underlying cushion of much hotter material, between 1,000,000 and 2,200,000 K.

"You can see the hot gas in the color-coded temperature movie," says Schrijver. "Cool material is red, hotter material is blue-green. The hot gas effectively slows the descent of the coronal rain."

Dick Fisher, the head of NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington DC, has been working in solar physics for nearly forty years. "In all that time," he says, "I've never seen images like this."

"I wonder, what will next week bring?"

Credit: NASA SDO / Lockheed Space Systems Company for AIA

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• SDO
• Solar
• Dynamics
• Observatory
• HMI
• AIA
• EVE
• Sun
• Eruption
• Rain

[rodrigolaz]

LittleSDOHMI Thanks.. I Love Your Work "Time Can Erase Memories Of A Face, A Body, But Never Erase Memories Of People Who Knew How To Make Small Moments, Great Moments."

[lusmanRally]

IT'S STARTING TO ''SPEAK''

2012 IS NEARLY lol

[L2rsSwc]

i dont even no what i am looking at or what this even means...

[ZetaFuzzMachine]

woww look at all those particles dancing to a cosmic strange song

[stephenramsden]

wow!

[BalzaClem]

AWESOME INDEED