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In this view of the Sun's northern pole, bright baubles of plasma surround an inky black swath of darkness known as a coronal hole. Coronal holes are enigmatic because they rotate rigidly, like a frisbee, but the rest of the Sun's plasma rotates differentially, like milk swirled in a mug of coffee.
This particular coronal hole contains a bright spike of plasma, which may be a jet. Solar jets rapidly expel plasma at a temperature of millions of degrees along open magnetic field lines that travel into interplanetary space. ~ Courtesy of Monica Bobra (SAO)


TRACE-XRT Comparison; Detail of AR from XRT; XRT and SOT views



Blue & green videos: comparison of active region seen in 2 XRT Filters. Observations of AR10923 on 11/17/2006.
Synoptic movie (large file!) Al_poly (short) Be_thin (short)