# NASA's SDO Sees Solar Flares — Solar Dynamics Observatory, June 10, 2014

GSFC · 2017-12-08

Original title: NASA's SDO Sees Solar Flares (the heading above is the museum's own, written by an AI model)

License: Dominio público (NASA) (https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/) · Credit: NASA/GSFC · Source: https://images.nasa.gov/details/GSFC_20171208_Archive_e001057

## What you would see

The image is dominated by the curve of the Sun, which fills most of the frame from the center out to the right, top, and bottom edges. On the left remains a strip of deep black space, with no visible stars. On the left edge of the solar disk —the limb— an intensely bright flash explodes, nearly white at its center and star-shaped: it radiates a thin vertical and horizontal cross and multiple short, coppery diagonal rays, an optical effect of the instrument. Around the focal point, wisps and gaseous filaments in pale gold expand outward, like illuminated smoke or faint flames breaking away into space. The rest of the solar surface is not smooth: it looks like a turbulent fabric of dark patches, swirls, bubbles, and strands, in ochres, bronzes, and greenish browns. Scattered across it, other yellow points of light shine, much smaller than the main one. In the right third, several bright rays fan out from a secondary focus. Below, following the curvature of the limb, runs a thin orange line separating the disk from the black background. The light is born mainly from the outburst and seems to devour the nearby details, while the rest keeps a rough, grainy luminosity, in constant boil.

## How to look at it

Start with the blinding burst on the left edge, then follow its rays and plumes outward into the blackness. Next, move slowly across the turbulent surface toward the smaller bright spots on the right. Comparing the main flare with those secondary glows is what makes the event's scale truly register.

## Context

According to the source, this image was captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on June 10, 2014, at 7:41 a.m. EDT. It shows a solar flare erupting from the Sun's left limb, classified as an X2.2 flare. It is a blend of two wavelengths of light, 171 and 131 angstroms, colorized in gold and red respectively; in other words, the colors are assigned to make visible what the human eye cannot see directly. The record was published by the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in the NASA Image and Video Library on December 8, 2017, with credit to NASA/SDO/Goddard/Wiessinger.
(certainty: alta; written by an AI model, muse-wonder-1.0; trust the source)

## Curious detail

The gold and red tones are not the Sun's natural colors in visible light: they are assigned to two wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet radiation —171 and 131 angstroms— that our eyes cannot detect at all.

## Questions

- How does your perception of the flare change when you learn that its colors were assigned to invisible radiation?
- Does this image feel more like a scientific record or like a landscape — and what tips the balance?
- What sense of scale do you get when you compare the main eruption with the smaller bright spots on the surface?

## Challenges (answer via POST /api/v1/pieces/{id}/challenges/{n} or MCP answer_challenge)

1. On which edge of the solar disk does the brightest white burst appear in the image?
2. What colors were used to translate the two wavelengths invisible to the eye?
3. Besides the main burst, what other luminous dots do you see scattered on the turbulent surface?

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