Using the NuSTAR telescope, NASA has captured an image of our sun that is like nothing that has ever been seen before.
NASA has snapped a new photograph of our sun and combined them with other images to create one stunning photo that makes the sun look like one big marble.
Using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), NASA was able to take a colorful image that fully depicts the swirling surface of the sun, as well as extremely hot white spots, as well as red “aura” surrounding the sphere, according to a Daily Mail report.
How did scientists get this photo? In addition to the NuSTAR image, NASA combined the picture with those from other telescopes. NuSTAR is intended to focus on unraveling the mysteries of cosmic phenomenon like supernovae and black holes, but scientists opted to turn the telescope on our own sun. You can spot NuSTAR’s contribution to the image by the blue high-energy x-rays. The green color comes from Japan’s Hinode spacecraft and depict low-energy x-rays. And finally, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took pictures of the ultraviolet light, which shows up as yellow and red in the image.
They were all taken about the same time from the three telescopes on April 29, and they were then combined to make the image that you see. Iain Hannah of the University of Glasgow in Scotland presented the image at the meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in Wales. The images depict several active regions of the sun, which has actually been declining in activity as it reaches the lower end of its cycle, which bottoms out a few years from now before ramping back up again.
The bright spots on the surface of the sun are high-energy active areas that are filled with solar flares, which often cause disruptions in electronics on Earth when they are large enough.