日愈活跃的太阳

日愈活跃的太阳

2023年2月22日 Our Increasingly Active Sun Image Credit & Copyright: Mehmet Ergün Explanation: Our Sun is becoming a busy place. Only two years ago, the Sun was emerging from a solar minimum so quiet that months would go by without even a single sunspot. In contrast, already this year and well ahead of schedule, our Sun is unusually active, already nearing solar activity levels seen a decade ago during the last solar maximum. Our increasingly active Sun was captured two weeks ago sporting numerous interesting features. The image was recorded in a single color of light called Hydrogen Alpha, color-inverted, and false colored. Spicules carpet much of the Sun’s face. The brightening towards the Sun’s edges is caused by increased absorption of relatively cool solar gas…

反白星场里的暗色太阳

反白星场里的暗色太阳

2022年11月6日 Dark Ball in Inverted Starfield Image Credit: Jim Lafferty Explanation: Does this strange dark ball look somehow familiar? If so, that might be because it is our Sun. In the featured image from 2012, a detailed solar view was captured originally in a very specific color of red light, then rendered in black and white, and then color inverted. Once complete, the resulting image was added to a starfield, then also color inverted. Visible in the image of the Sun are long light filaments, dark active regions, prominences peeking around the edge, and a moving carpet of hot gas. The surface of our Sun can be a busy place, in particular during Solar Maximum, the time when its surface magnetic field is wound up…