SDO: Complex Mass of Plasma

A small, but complex mass of solar material gyrated and spun about over the course of 40 hours above the surface of the sun on Sept. 1-3, 2015. It was stretched and pulled back and forth by powerful magnetic forces in this sequence captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. The temperature of the ionized iron particles observed in this extreme ultraviolet wavelength of light was about 5 million degrees Fahrenheit. SDO captures imagery in many wavelengths, each of which represents different tem