NASA Telescope Snaps Best-Ever Pictures of Sun’s Atmosphere
NASA’s High Resolution Coronal Imager telescope, or Hi-C, captured this high-resolution shot of the sun’s outer atmosphere during a 10-minute suborbital spaceflight on July 11, 2012. CREDIT: NASA
A NASA telescope snapped the best-ever images of the sun’s million-degree outer atmosphere during a brief spaceflight this month, agency officials say.
The High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C for short, captured 165 stunning pictures of the sun’s corona during a 10-minute suborbital flight on July 11. The telescope focused its gaze on a large sunspot, a temporary blemish on the sun that appears dark because it is cooler than the rest of the solar surface.
Huge solar flares and blasts of plasma called coronal mass ejections (CMEs) often erupt from sunspots. Hi-C’s photos could help researchers better understand the solar atmosphere and its potential impacts on Earth, project scientists said…
(via cometsmeteoroids)
