Click for movie. High resolution movie available on YouTube.
A Solar Facelift
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On July 4, two active regions, AR12376 and AR12373, are near the center of the solar disk. These large, quiet regions didn't produce fireworks this Fourth of July but they have a long history beginning with the emergence of a single active region that significantly changed the appearance of the sun. The above image, and accompanying movie, show a composite of the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) magnetogram with Hinode X-Ray Telescope thin_Be images. See below for more details. The movie begins on 18 March 2015, showing a quiet Sun with few active regions. Bright patches of x-ray emission sit above regions of concentrated magnetic field. The red x-ray fuzz indicate a hot atmosphere. Each frame of the movie shows the same face of the sun after a single rotation, approximately one month apart. The emergence of the active region significantly changed its neighborhood. Not only did the atmosphere get hot around these regions, but it appears as though this active region may contribute to the stability of a large coronal hole. We will have to watch this region to determine if the coronal hole in the south will be able to extend further north.
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(Prepared by Patricia Jibben)
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