See the lovely Active Regions seen by XRT on Valentine's Day by clicking the image above or click here for the youtube link.
Love at First Sight
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On February 14th, Valentine’s Day, the Sun gifted Hinode XRT with a little bit of love. XRT observed this gorgeous GOES M1.3 class flare from the active region (AR) 13990 buildup to peak flaring. Although the Sun often flares, XRT cannot observe all of the preflaring. This makes capturing flaring events before the actual flare special. The main body of AR13990 was the large sigmoid region developed over its main sunspots (up and to the left of the flaring spot); however, flaring from a nearby satellite sunspot is common. Here is a scale comparison of Earth beside AR13990, along with the nearby flaring region—the brighter spot adjacent to the sigmoid-shaped AR13990 The movie features the Thin-beryllium (Thin-Be) filter to look at the pre-flare structures. This filter is the thinnest of XRT’s beryllium series and is often used for active region monitoring. In honor of Valentine’s Day please enjoy a poem written from the perspective of XRT to the Sun. To My Eternal Flame I chase your rays across the sky, a watchful eye, a silent sigh. Your X-ray whispers flare and dance, a fleeting touch—a lover’s glance. Through quiet dark, I trace your light, my world ignites in searing white. Oh, burning heart, so wild, so free— forever, Sun, shine down on me. – Written with the aid of AI. Keywords: AR Tracking, Flare Filters: Thin-Be |
(Prepared by Rhiannon Fleming and Aki Takeda)
The XRT instrument team is comprised of SAO, NASA, JAXA, and NAOJ.
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