Sun turns smile into face of FURY! NASA shares terrifying image of the furious fireball

After a lovely smiling face, the mood of the Sun has soured and it is now presenting a face of fury. NASA has just shared an image where the Sun is seen in quite a furious mode.

By: HT TECH
| Updated on: Nov 24 2022, 16:20 IST
Do all solar activities like solar storms, CME, impact Earth? This is what NASA says
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1/5 Sun is a source of energy and a lot of activities keep on happening on the fireball. But can Earth be impacted by solar activities? Before we tell you that, it is important to know what solar activity is? According to NASA, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, high-speed solar wind, and solar energetic particles are all forms of solar activity. All solar activity is driven by the solar magnetic field. (NASA)
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2/5 Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth. Because flares are made of photons, they travel out directly from the flare site, so if we can see the flare, we can be impacted by it. (Pixabay)
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3/5 Coronal mass ejections, also called CMEs, are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction, and then continue on in that direction, plowing right through the solar wind. Only when the cloud is aimed at Earth will the CME hit Earth and therefore cause impacts. (NASA)
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4/5 High-speed solar wind streams come from areas on the sun known as coronal holes. These holes can form anywhere on the sun and usually, only when they are closer to the solar equator, do the winds they produce impact Earth. (NASA)
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5/5 Solar energetic particles are high-energy charged particles, primarily thought to be released by shocks formed at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through the solar wind, high velocity solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they must follow the magnetic field lines that pervade the space between the Sun and the Earth. Therefore, only the charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect the Earth will result in impacts. (NASA)
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No more smiley, NASA shares Sun's face of fury. ( NASA Sun & Space Twitter)

Just before Halloween, on October 27, 2022, NASA had shared an image of the smiling Sun. It was simply awesome, a Sun smiley! However, the mood of the fireball seems to have changed now, soured in fact! There has been a complete U-turn in the Sun's mood and it has soured unimaginably, presenting a terrifying spectacle. NASA on Tuesday shared the image of the Sun's face of fury on its Twitter handle. Sharing the image NASA tweeted, "After last month's smiley face, the Sun's mood seems to have…soured."

Earlier, while sharing the Sun's smiling face, NASA informed that the dark patches which have formed the eyes and the smile of the Sun are the coronal holes. "Today, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the Sun "smiling." Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the Sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space," the tweet read.

Giving further insights regarding the smiling face image of the Sun, the US agency on November 10 said that the solar wind gushing from each of the eyes of the Sun in the image was streaming at over 370 miles per second. "Another #FunFact is that the solar wind gushing from each of the "eyes" in this image was streaming at over 370 miles per second! This super-fast solar wind is called a high speed stream," the tweet read.

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Meanwhile, for the uninitiated, coronal holes appear as dark areas in the solar corona in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft x-ray solar images. They appear dark because they are cooler, less dense regions than the surrounding plasma and are regions of open, unipolar magnetic fields. This open, magnetic field line structure allows the solar wind to escape more readily into space, resulting in streams of relatively fast solar wind and is often referred to as a high speed stream in the context of analysis of structures in interplanetary space, according to the information provided by NASA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

It can be known that coronal holes can develop at any time and location on the Sun, but are more common and persistent during the years around solar minimum. The more persistent coronal holes can sometimes last through several solar rotations (27-day periods). Coronal holes are most prevalent and stable at the solar north and south poles; but these polar holes can grow and expand to lower solar latitudes.

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First Published Date: 24 Nov, 15:26 IST
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