Remove this ad

photosphere

A Branching “Tree” of Solar Plasma

November 24, 2012

Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Hydrogen-alpha photo of the Sun by Alan Friedman An enormous tree-shaped prominence spreads its “branches” tens of thousands of miles above the Sun’s photosphere in this image, a section of a photo acquired in hydrogen alpha (Ha) by Alan Friedman last [...]

Read the full article →

A Shimmering, Simmering Sunspot

July 12, 2012

This quick animation made by astrophotographer Alan Friedman shows a 30-minute view of sunspot 1520, a large region of magnetic activity on the Sun that’s currently aimed directly at Earth. Although 1520 has been quiet for the past couple of days, it’s loaded with a delta-class magnetic field — just right for launching powerful X-class [...]

Read the full article →

The “Deep Blue Sea” of the Sun

June 21, 2012

Looking like an intricate pen-and-ink illustration, the complex and beautiful structures of the Sun’s surface come to life in yet another stunning photo by Alan Freidman, captured from the historic Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles, California. Click below for the full-size image in all its hydrogen alpha glory. Remove this ad

Read the full article →

Parts of the Sun

March 11, 2012

From here on Earth, the Sun like a smooth ball of fire, and before the discovery of sunspots by Galileo, astronomers even thought it was a perfect orb with no imperfections. However, we now know that the Sun, like Earth, is actually made up of several layers, each of which serves its own purpose. It’s [...]

Read the full article →

Photosphere

December 14, 2009

The region of the Sun that we can actually see, where all the light comes from, is known as the photosphere. This is the point where photons generated inside the Sun finally reach the vacuum of space, released from the inside of the Sun. As we look down into the Sun, it becomes less and [...]

Read the full article →
Remove this ad