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.
Watch space station’s new solar array unfurl in space
Two American astronauts successfully completed a spacewalk at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday, December 3.
NASA’s Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio spent just over seven hours outside the orbital laboratory before concluding their spacewalk at 2:21 p.m. ET. This was only the second spacewalk for both astronauts, following the pair’s first one on November 15.
James Webb and Keck Observatory see clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan
Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope and the W. M. Keck Observatory have teamed up to study Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and observe the way that clouds move around it. Early preview results of this research have now been released, which have not yet been peer-reviewed.
By bringing together space-based observations and ground-based observations, researchers were able to see how the clouds changed. Webb gathered data in the infrared using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, and Keck provided confirmation images also in the near-infrared two days later. “We were concerned that the clouds would be gone when we looked at Titan one and two days later with Keck, but to our delight there were clouds at the same positions, looking like they might have changed in shape,” said Keck researcher Imke de Pater in a statement.
See the ‘quiet’ of the sun’s corona in Solar Orbiter footage
Solar Orbiter, the European Space Agency (ESA) mission that launched in 2020 and which includes the closest camera to the sun, has made a second close approach of our star and has captured stunning footage of the sun's corona.
Solar Orbiter’s unprecedented view of the quiet corona
