Vallarta Today - Puerto Vallarta's Only Daily English Newspaper - Vallarta Daily News The Newspaper Of The Bay

Tue, May

The Sun Looks Uncannily Like A Jack-O-Lantern, Just In Time For Halloween

Typography

Smaller Small Medium Big Bigger
Default Helvetica Segoe Georgia Times
Reading Mode

Halloween is on its way, and everyone’s starting to get into the festive spirit. Even the sun, it seems, wants to get in on the fun.

On Wednesday, the same day that skywatchers were treated to a full "blood moon," NASA captured a spooky image of the sun looking uncannily like a glowing jack-o-lantern.

“Active regions on the sun combined to look something like a jack-o-lantern’s face on Oct. 8,” NASA said in a written statement. “The active regions appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy -- markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.”

NASA uses specialized instruments to observe the sun in different wavelengths of light, allowing scientists to observe light that can't be seen by the naked eye.

The image, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, is a composite which shows the sun in a blend of two wavelengths (171 and 193 Angstroms). Extreme ultraviolet light of 171 Angstroms shows the sun's atmosphere, or corona, “when it's quiet,” while 193 Angstroms shows hotter regions of the corona, according to NASA.

Scroll down to the see more images of the Oct. 8 "jack-o-lantern" sun in other wavelengths.

335 Angstroms