Videos: Recent solar activity

The  Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)  imaged a big solar flare this week :  Science of the sun: NASA releases solar flare footage – BBC (includes video).

And here are a couple more videos of solar activity from the SDO Youtube gallery:

Caption:

Powerful magnetic forces above an active region on the Sun twisted and pulled at a blob of plasma until it lost its connections and blew out into space (Mar. 26, 2014). The resultant swirling presented its own kind of graceful, almost ballet-like bends and sweeps. To offer some kind of size perspective that blob, before it broke away, was easily larger than several Earths. The event was observed in extreme ultraviolet light over about 5.5 hours beginning at 7:00 UT. The still image was taken at 10:45 UT. Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA

Caption:

The Sun unleashed a M-9.3 flare, just short of an X class (the largest) from an active region right at the Sun’s edge (Mar. 12-13, 2014). The bright flash is the tell tale sign of a flare. The brightness of the flare causes very bright saturation and blooming above and below the flare region on the CCD detector and caused extended diffraction patterns to spread out across the SDO imager. The video clip shows a smaller flare preceded this one as well. The video covers about 15 hours. The still shows the peak of the flare at 22:38UT on Mar. 12. Images were taken in extreme ultraviolet light, showing ionized iron at 10 million degrees. Credit: Solar Dynamics Observatory/NASA.

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Check out real and near real-time solar images and data on the HobbySpace  Sun & Space Weather page.