NASA has just released stunning footage of a massive eruption of solar material that occurred on the surface of the Sun earlier this month.
The eruption, called a coronal mass ejection (CME) occurred on May 9 and was caught on camera by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS).
According to NASA, the CME was a massive "curtain of solar material" that erupted from the side of the Sun at speeds exceeding 1.5 million miles per hour.
Interestingly, while CMEs have been associated with solar flares, a causal relationship has not been established. The Sun produces an estimated three to four CMEs every day, according to the Goddard Space Flight Center. Still considering how massive the sun is, these explosions are difficult to catch.
This was reportedly the first CME caught in action by NASA's IRIS, which was designed by Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory, who also manage missions for the observational craft.
The IRIS is best described as a high-powered orbital telescope, which is operated by experts back on Earth. It focuses primarily on the chromosphere and transition region of the Sun - a region where "magnetic field and plasma exert comparable forces, resulting in a dynamic region whose understanding remains a challenge," according to the IRIS team.
The fact that the IRIS is not a stationary telescope makes it particularly harder to direct, despite its fantastic capability to stay focused on one part of the Sun at a time, relaying footage with breathtaking clarity.
According to NASA, this means that catching a CME in action takes a lot of educated guesswork and a bit of luck.
"We wait and hope that we'll catch something. This is the first clear CME for IRIS so the team is very excited," said Bart De Pontieu, the IRIS science lead.
[Credit: NASA/LMSAL/IRIS/SDO/Goddard]