This week, the Sun erupted with a powerful solar flare, and the incident was caught in real-time by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. NASA has shared remarkable footage of the event, which took place on January 20, peaking at 1:01 a.m. ET.
“Solar flares are powerful bursts of energy,” NASA writes. “Flares and solar eruptions can impact radio communications, electric power grids, navigation signals, and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts.”
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the right side of this image of the Sun – on January 20. The image from SDO’s Atmospheric Imaging Assembly 131 Ångström channel (colorized in teal) shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares. Credits: NASA/SDOThe Solar Dynamics Observatory constantly observes this sun, waiting to capture moments like this and seeing how the star changes over time. The image is colorized into this blue shade to better show off the flare event, with the blue representing the extreme ultraviolet light given off by the Sun due to its heat. As well as the whole-Sun image above, NASA also released a close-up clip which shows the flaring region in more detail:
A zoom in on the flaring region. Credits: NASA/SDOThis was classified as a M5.5 solar flare, making it one of the more intense types of flare to have been spotted. According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, there are five levels to measure solar flare intensity, each designated by a letter. The lowest is the A level, followed by B, C, M, and X flares, with each level giving off X-rays ten times more powerful than the level below. As an M flare, this event was on the stronger end of the scale, though not quite as dramatic as the X-1 class flare observed in October last year.
How to watch this week’s solar eclipse in person or online
This Tuesday, October 25, a partial solar eclipse will be visible in some parts of the world as the moon passes between the Earth and the sun. Around a quarter of the sun's face will be obscured behind the shadow of the moon in what will be the final eclipse of 2022.
Partial eclipse of the Sun, 20 July 1982. Captured from Harefield in the UK. Robin Scagell/Galaxy
See the horror of the sun up close from world’s most powerful solar telescope
The astronomy community has a new tool for studying the sun, with the inauguration this week of the world's largest solar telescope. The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located in Maui, Hawai'i, has a 13-foot (4-meter) primary mirror enabling it to see the sun in phenomenal detail.
To celebrate the telescope's inauguration on August 31, 2022, this week the National Science Foundation (NSF) released a new image of the sun's chromosphere. This is the part of the sun's atmosphere that is right above its surface, and the image shows a region 50,000 miles across where temperatures can be as high as 13,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
Plotting the death of our sun using data from Gaia
Nothing in this world is forever -- not even the sun in the sky. Recent research using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite has shed light on the eventual fate of our sun, which will puff up to become an enormous red giant, likely swallowing the Earth, before eventually dimming to a small, faint white dwarf.
From Gaia observations to astrophysical properties: the life of a star (Gaia Data Release 3)
