Last week was an exciting time for skywatchers who are also in the Halloween spirit. Not only did amateur astronomers get to witness a lunar eclipse featuring a Blood Moon, but now NASA reveals the Pumpkin Sun.
Last week was an exciting time for skywatchers who are also in the Halloween spirit. Not only did amateur astronomers get to witness a lunar eclipse featuring a Blood Moon, but now NASA released a spooky picture of the sun fit for the season.
Dubbed, “Pumpkin Sun,” the picture highlights the active regions on the sun, from which somewhat of a jack-o-lantern face can be discerned.
“The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy — markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona,” said NASA Goodard Flight Center. “This image blends together two sets of wavelengths at 171 and 193 Angstroms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.”
Although these pictures were taken of the sun, they were done so by special technology at the Solar Dynamics Observatory that used various ultraviolet light wavelengths to capture the images. It is not recommended for anyone to look at the sun at any time in attempts to see the Pumpkin Sun.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory used four different ultraviolet wavelengths to photograph the sun tinged from beige to blue, and used two of them to get the fifth spooky composite.
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