Given you can, by definition, see the Sun almost every single day, it takes a lot to truly impress us when it comes to solar photography. Well, this image by NASA depicting a solar flare (or alternatively some sort of galactic superhero) has done just that. Who said teal couldn't make things awesome?
The reason for the particular colourisation on the photo is down to the wavelength at which NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the solar event. Flares such as these are typically imaged at the extreme ultraviolet end of the light spectrum, at 131 Angstroms, hence the rather fetching teal sheen. By way of comparison, visible light has a wavelength of between 3800 and 7500 Angstroms, or about 400 to 750 nanometres.
Of course, what makes the image particularly striking is the actual flare itself. Now, the likelihood of any superhero making their home in the Sun is, of course, quite low. Still, there's something about this image that brings to mind a number of caped (and not-so-caped) crusaders powering up and/or smashing bad guys into oblivion. Perhaps over nine thousand of them.
NASA's STEREO beacon has indicated a possibility of a coronal mass ejection emanating from this particular flare, but it's unlikely it will cause any geomagnetic storms here on Earth. We still have our fingers crossed for superpowers, though.
[NASA]
