NASA | Canyon of Fire on the Sun

A magnetic filament of solar material erupted on the sun in late September, breaking the quiet conditions in a spectacular fashion. The 200,000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona, leaving behind what looks like a canyon of fire. The glowing canyon traces the channel where magnetic fields held the filament aloft before the explosion. Visualizers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. combined two days of satellite data to create a short movie of this gigantic event on the sun.

In reality, the sun is not made of fire, but of something called plasma: particles so hot that their electrons have boiled off, creating a charged gas that is interwoven with magnetic fields.

These images were captured on Sept. 29-30, 2013, by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which constantly observes the sun in a variety of wavelengths.

Different wavelengths help capture different aspect of events in the corona. The red images shown in the movie help highlight plasma at temperatures of 90,000° F and are good for observing filaments as they form and erupt. The yellow images, showing temperatures at 1,000,000° F, are useful for observing material coursing along the sun's magnetic field lines, seen in the movie as an arcade of loops across the area of the eruption. The browner images at the beginning of the movie show material at temperatures of 1,800,000° F, and it is here where the canyon of fire imagery is most obvious.

By comparing this with the other colors, one sees that the two swirling ribbons moving farther away from each other are, in fact, the footprints of the giant magnetic field loops, which are growing and expanding as the filament pulls them upward.

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[restybal]

It is amazing to realize that the sun, which is supposed to be an ordinary star, could be doing this amount of energy every day in the past billions of years and in the billions more years hence. The amount of energy involved is, compared to human scale, incomprehensible.

[AlexW]

Whoever's choosing the music for your videos is doing a good job NASA.

[tashashannon]

This is remarkable. That we have the technology to film this and make a short movie! Thanks NASA! It is as if I am right there watching this occur. This is stuff dreams are made of

[WalidFeghali]

This music is so Metroid Prime, and with that amazing footage - Nerd chills!! Wish I knew the artist!

[XAndy]

Boring video? Hardly. I know what occurs on the sun, and this was by far one of the coolest videos I've seen! I was mesmerized by it.

[VICARIS]

It's sights like these that make every DAMN PENNY that went into NASA's budget worthwhile.

[earthlingjohn]

"The 200, 000 mile long filament ripped through the sun's atmosphere, the corona..." think for a moment about that distance, 200, 000 miles. That represents roughly 80% of the distance from earth to the moon. This earthling is impressed.

[crnosphere]

who could dislike this video? it's awe inspiring.

[bontrom]

Nasa Goddard, Ya'll have outdone yourselves with the theatrics of this piece.  I have been looking at the static photos and small rotating sun gifs waiting for a better look at the Sun.  This truly puts the forces at play into a language we can understand.  Thank you for your work.  

[TimBahrij]

Would love to see a realtime video of the event to get a grasp on how fast that eruption was.

[MsNunu]

the music was FIRE!!! ALSO I learned the sun is mega powerful than I thought I thought

[kelliebrowne]

The Clarity & Detail Is Just Out Of This World- Wow!!

[mflynn]

Please keep uploading these solar events they are amazing. A compilation video over time for education would be good also. Thanks for all you do.

[NASAGoddard]

The music for the video is "MegaFiles, " from the Stack Traxx collection put out by Digital Juice, which unfortunately was discontinued in 2010

[Astrobrant]

Fantastic!
I can still remember the best pictures of the sun when I was growing up. Who could have imagined the images we would have gotten in the last few years? Who would have ever guessed how complex and gorgeous it is?

[paulatiredofthisshit]

*GASP* You actually made a comment relevant to the video!! Very impressive!

[pazful]

beyond amazing. how is this even possible to get in such high resolution?

[MoldyWarts]

Whoever made the song is brilliant and I want it

[steveharvey]

I really like the music :) Excellent job with this one. You all are getting much better at presenting to the public.

[Melethasgar]

I hope these images are authentic because WOW nature is awesome!