For something 4.5 billion years old, the sun still has color left to shine.
The hot glowing ball of hydrogen and helium at the center of our solar system is showing off its rainbow of Pantones in a hidden light show recently captured by a NASA telescope.
A new image captured by the space agency’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) shows high-energy X-rays emitted by the hottest material in the sun’s atmosphere.
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NuSTAR typically studies black holes and collapsed stars located outside our solar system but now provides astronomers with insights about the sun.
In the photo below, NASA’s NuSTAR sees high-energy X-rays shown in blue; the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hinode mission sees lower-energy X-rays shown in green; and NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory sees ultraviolet light shown in red.
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When the three wavelengths of light are overlaid on top of one another, it provides a unique view of the sun.
“NuSTAR’s view could help scientists solve one of the biggest mysteries about our nearest star: why the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, reaches more than a million degrees – at least 100 times hotter than its surface,” NASA said Thursday.
The mystery has puzzled scientists because the sun’s heat originates in its core and travels outward.
The source of the corona’s heat could be small eruptions in the sun’s atmosphere called nanoflares, NASA said.
The sun is located about 93 million miles from Earth, and without its energy, life as we know it could not exist on our home planet.