Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Jewel Box Sun - UNIVERSE


This year the December Solstice is today, December 21, at 10:44 UT, the first day of winter in the north and summer in the south.

To celebrate, explore this creative visualization of the Sun from visible to extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, using image data from the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Against a base image made at a visible wavelengths, the wedge-shaped segments show the solar disk at increasingly shorter ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet wavelengths.

Shown in false-color and rotating in a clockwise direction, the filters decrease in wavelength from 170 nanometers (in pink) through 9.4 nanometers (green). At shorter wavelengths, the altitude and temperature of the regions revealed in the solar atmosphere tend to increase. Bright at visible wavelengths, the solar photosphere looks darker in the ultraviolet, but sunspots glow and bright plasma traces looping magnetic fields.


Info via APOD

Source:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011300/a011385/
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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