Check Out One of the Hottest and Fluffiest Structures on the Sun!

Amaze Lab

When you think of the surface of the Sun you likely imagine a veritable hellscape, one with extreme temperatures, wild solar explosions and flares. Well, that’s all true, however a recent observation by the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter is making it look all cuddly.

Transcript

00:00When you think of the surface of the Sun, you likely imagine a veritable hellscape – one

00:08with extreme temperatures, wild solar explosions and flares. Well, that's all true. However,

00:13a recent observation by the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter is making it look

00:18all cuddly. This video was recently released by the ESA, showing what they call coronal moss,

00:23or the fur-like surface on some parts of the Sun. Experts say the hottest areas of the Sun reach

00:28temperatures upwards of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit. However, these fluffy areas of

00:33coronal moss, imaged here, are so hot most instrumentation can't even tell us just how

00:38hot they are. They say it grows around groupings of sunspots, where the Sun's magnetic field lines

00:43are connecting into loops. The coronal moss also goes through two layers of the Sun's atmospheric

00:47layers as well. The ESA also pointed out other solar structures, like these spicules, which are

00:53great spikes of gas reaching upwards of 6,000 miles. They also pointed out coronal rain,

00:58which just like on Earth, is much cooler than everything else you're seeing. Experts say that

01:02the temperature of these falling high-density bits of plasma likely clock in at less than 18,000 degrees

01:08Fahrenheit.

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