You have most likely never seen our Sun such as this. This strange image of old Sol is derived from the data of 3 different space telescopes, each looking at the Sun in a different wavelength.
The spacecraft that teamed up for this picture are NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which examines high energy X rays. The X-ray Telescope on the Hinode objective of Japan, which examines in X rays at lower energies; Plus the Solar Dynamics Observatory of NASA, that can observe the sun’s rays in multiple wavelengths (thirteen), but this particular view is in the ultraviolet.
The composite picture testifies to the long lasting of these 3 missions. During 2006, Hinode was introduced. It was only supposed to be a three-year mission, but it is still in operation. The SDO was released in 2010 and continues to be collecting information – about 1.4 terabytes every day. Launched in 2012, NuSTAR’s main mission is not to study the sun, but to concentrate on the light in the high power X-Rays of our Universe. It’s been carrying out a census of collapsed stars and black holes of various sizes by checking out regions surrounding the center of own Milky Way Galaxy and performing deep observations of the extragalactic sky.
Blue parts are supplied by NuSTAR, while green originates from Hinode, while red is provided by SDO. Below are the individual photographs.
NASA stated that NuSTAR’s comparatively small field of view means it can not see the whole Sun from its location in Earth orbit, so the NuSTAR image is a combination of twenty five pictures, that had been captured by the observatory in June 2022. The high energy X rays which NuSTAR is able to see only show up in a couple of places in which the hottest substance is present in the Sun’s atmosphere.
In contrast, the X-Ray Telescope (Hinode XRT) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) of SDO could both identify wavelengths emitted throughout the whole face of the Sun. The hot spots observed by NuSTAR could be caused by collections of nanoflares or small outbursts of heat, light and particles coming from the surface of the Sun that subsequently heat the atmosphere. Nanoflares are too dim to watch straight in the blazing light of the Sun.
