A Hole in the Sun

An animation of images of the Sun acquired by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft on July 11, 2016 highlights a dark area covering the top of the Sun known as a “coronal hole.“ In the animation, the Sun is seen in extreme ultraviolet light. This highlights the outer atmosphere — the Sun’s corona — as well as hot plasma from erupting flares. Hot active regions, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections appear bright. The dark coronal hole is an area where very little radiation is being emitted. S