This past week, the sun briefly gave NASA observers a timely and spooky show:
Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8, 2014. The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy — markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of wavelengths at 171 and 193 Angstroms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.
According to NASA, the regions forming the jack-o-lantern features are “markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.” The intense solar activity associated with the photos is not expected to threaten Earth.
See more of the pumpkin sun at NASA’s Goddard Media Studio.