February 17, 2015
Somewhere above you, light is arriving from places so distant their names feel like poetry.
Fibrils Flower on the Sun
Birthday · February 17, 2015
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published February 17, 2015. Credit: Big Bear Solar Obs., NJIT, Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
When does the Sun look like a flower? In a specific color of red light emitted by hydrogen, as featured here, some regions of the solar chromosphere may resemble a rose. The color-inverted image was taken in 2014 October and shows active solar region 2177. The petals dominating the frame are actually magnetically confined tubes of hot plasma called fibrils, some of which extend longer than the diameter of the Earth. In the central region many of these fibrils are seen end-on, while the surrounding regions are typically populated with curved fibrils. When seen over the Sun's edge, these huge plasma tubes are called spicules, and when they occur in passive regions they are termed mottles. Sunspot region 2177 survived for several more days before the complex and tumultuous magnetic field poking through the Sun's surface evolved yet again. Follow APOD on: Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter
Image credit: Big Bear Solar Obs., NJIT, Alan Friedman (Averted Imagination)