The sun burning (image: Nasa)

NASA Catches The Sun Getting Into The Halloween Spirit

Boys and girls of every age, wouldn't you like to see something strange?

Jill Pantozzi

Published: Oct 16, 2014 10:38 am

This article is over 10 years old and may contain outdated information

Trick or treat, smell my heat, give me something good to eat (like a planet)!

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You’ve seen the “man on the moon” right? What about the Jack-o’-lantern on the sun? Well, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory was at the right place at the right time on October 8th to see just that. They write:

The image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, which watches the sun at all times from its orbit in space.

The active regions in this image appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy. They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona. This image blends together two sets of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths at 171 and 193 Ångströms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance.

This might be one of the coolest (ha ha) things I’ve ever seen. And just what I needed to get into the Halloween spirit.

(via NASA, image Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO)

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Author

Jill Pantozzi

Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."