Monday Bites: Fifty Shades Of Sol

 Monday Bites: Fifty Shades Of Sol 

Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center

What you see here is forty-eight unique images of the sun, taken across the multiple bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, all patched up into a captivating portrait of our sun. 

Though our eyes can't see it, the sun's surface is intensely dynamic. From churning cells of superheated plasma rising and sinking, with magnetic field lines turning and twisting, breaking and reconnecting, resulting in the release of tremendous electromagnetic energy in the form of solar flares, the sun's surface is forever changing. We miss that because our eyes only pick up a tiny sliver of the vast range of frequencies through which the sun radiates. 

To see the sun in its full glory, we got to look outside the (visible) 4000 - 7000 angstrom range. The Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched on February 11, 2010, was tailor-made for this purpose. 

The graphic below highlights how specific wavelengths reveal particular aspects of the sun. The HMI Continuum brings out the sun's visible surface the way our eyes register when we look through proper solar glasses. Not part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the HMI Dopplergram opens up how solar material slides across the surface, while on the other hand, the HMI Magnetogram indicates magnetic polarity — places where the magnetic field lines exit and enter the photosphere. 

Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center 

As you can see, specific wavelength bands of the electromagnetic spectrum allows us to peel away the Sun's atmosphere layer by layer and reveal what's otherwise hidden. 

Fourteen years into service, going to thrice its planned mission duration of five years, the SDO continues to advance our understanding of solar dynamics.