NASA captures 'jack-o'-lantern' image of the sun - CNN

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CNN  — 

A NASA observatory captured what appeared to beryllium a jack-o’-lantern-esque grin connected the sun’s surface, showing what are really splotches connected the sun’s aboveground that are cooler than the surrounding areas.

The image, taken by NASA’s space-based Solar Dynamics Observatory, was shared by the abstraction bureau connected societal media past week and prompted an outpouring of responses weighing successful connected what the signifier of erratic acheronian spots resembled.

The authoritative Twitter relationship for NASA’s heliophysics section referred to it simply arsenic a “smiling” sun, portion the United Kingdom’s Science and Technology Facilities Council weighed successful by photoshopping a pumpkin into the picture, turning it into a jack-o’-lantern.

Other users saw the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from the movie “Ghostbusters,” a lion, a blobfish oregon assorted snack foods that carnivore smiley faces.

The acheronian areas that marque up the facial pattern, however, are what are called coronal holes, which look arsenic irregular achromatic patches erstwhile the prima is imaged successful ultraviolet airy oregon definite types of X-ray images, according to the space agency.

Coronal holes are not arsenic blistery arsenic the surrounding areas and aren’t arsenic dense, making them darker successful appearance. They tin popular up connected the star aboveground astatine immoderate time.

Their magnetic tract operation besides sets up coronal holes to merchandise streams of star wind, oregon charged particles, astatine speeds of much than 1 cardinal miles per hr (1.6 cardinal kilometers per hour). These winds are almighty capable to scope Earth. Our planet’s magnetic field, which acts arsenic a shield, mostly deflects star upwind activity, but it tin disturb the atmosphere.

The NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory, oregon SDO, routinely captures specified images of the prima and is monitoring its enactment connected a astir continual basis. The orbiting observatory was launched successful 2010, and it’s portion of the abstraction agency’s Living With a Star Program, which aims to analyse however star enactment impacts our location satellite and the abstraction betwixt the Earth and our location star.