Let's Look at the Sun

Let's look at the sun today, shall we?

(CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE AWESOMENESS)

NASA's new Solar Dynamics Observatory is starting to pump out some lovely data. Here is a composite color image of the sun from March 30, 2010 showing hot plasma, UV radiation, and flares:

Speaking of flares, look at this amazing SDO video of the flare in the upper left corner of the above image:

 

Here's another nice flare picture:

Gigantic magnetic tubes of hot gas (aka spicules) on the sun's surface:

A sun halo over Cambodia:

Blue image of sun highlighting hydrogen-alpha spicules:

Martian sunset:

Images from NASA's APOD site.