Solar scientists have captured spectacular new images of plasma “rain” in the sun’s corona using advanced technology. The images, taken by researchers from the US National Science Foundation’s National Solar Observatory and New Jersey Institute of Technology, show features not previously observed.
The corona is the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, but it is only visible briefly during a total solar eclipse. It is millions of degrees hotter than the sun’s surface and is critical to understanding the solar wind, which affects planetary atmospheres, including Earth’s.
The images, artificially colorized from hydrogen-alpha light, show coronal rain, prominences, and finely structured plasma streams. The 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope used Cona, a form of adaptive optics that corrects for atmospheric distortions, to capture the new images.
Cona increases the resolution of observations, allowing scientists to study features over 620 miles wide to just 63 km in size. The technology is being installed on the world’s largest solar telescope in Hawaii, marking a significant step forward in understanding the sun’s corona.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/space-photo-of-the-week-pink-raindrops-on-the-sun-captured-in-greatest-detail-ever