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Tangled up in Blue

Sept. 2, 2015
A small, but complex mass of plasma gyrated and spun about over the course of 40 hours above the surface of the Sun taken by NASA's GSFC Solar Dynamics Observatory on Sept. 1-3, 2015.

A small, but complex mass of plasma gyrated and spun about over the course of 40 hours above the surface of the Sun (Sept. 1-3, 2015). It was stretched and pulled back and forth by powerful magnetic forces but not ripped apart in this sequence. The temperature of the ionized iron particles observed in this extreme ultraviolet wavelength of light was about 2.8 million degrees C. (or 5 million degrees F.)

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PIA19878_Blue_chunk_big.mp4
PIA19878_Blue_chunk_sm.mp4

SDO is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Its Atmosphere Imaging Assembly was built by the Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), Palo Alto, California.

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