IRIS close-up of a solar flare

Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.0 On June 27, 2013, NASA launched IRIS, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph. IRIS gives us our first detailed image of a layer of the sun’s atmosphere called the chromosphere. Boasting the highest temporal and spatial resolution to date, IRIS provides imagery and a special kind of data called spectra. In this video, we will look at IRIS data from a solar flare on March 11, 2015. Related pages

A coronal mass ejection burst off the side of the sun on May 9, 2014. The giant sheet of solar material erupting was the first CME seen by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS. The field of view seen here is about five Earth's wide and about seven and a half Earth's tall.Watch this video on the NASAexplorer YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. A coronal mass ejection, or CME, surged off the side of the sun on May 9, 2014, and NASA's newest solar observatory caught it in extraordinary detail. This was the first CME observed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, which launched in June 2013 to peer into the lowest levels of the sun's atmosphere with better resolution than ever before. Watch the movie to see how a curtain of solar material erupts outward at speeds of 1.5 million miles per hour.IRIS must commit to pointing at certain areas of the sun at least a day in advance, so catching a CME in the act involves some educated guesses and a little bit of luck. "We focus in on active regions to try to see a flare or a CME," said Bart De Pontieu, the IRIS science lead at Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. "And then we wait and hope that we'll catch something. This is the first clear CME for IRIS so the team is very excited." The IRIS imagery focuses in on material of 30,000 Kelvin at the base, or foot points, of the CME. The line moving across the middle of the movie is the entrance slit for IRIS's spectrograph, an instrument that can split light into its many wavelengths – a technique that ultimately allows scientists to measure temperature, velocity and density of the solar material behind the slit. The field of view for this imagery is about five Earth's wide and about seven and a half Earth's tall. The IRIS Observatory was designed by and the mission is managed by Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory. NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, provides mission operations and ground data systems. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the Explorers Program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. Related pages

On Jan. 28, 2014, NASA's newly-launched Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, observed its strongest solar flare to date.Credit: NASA/IRIS/SDO/Goddard Space Flight CenterWatch this video on the NASA Goddard's YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here. Still image from Jan. 28, 2014 flare as seen NASA's newly-launched Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS.Credit: NASA/IRIS/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center Image comparing a how NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), and the Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), observed a solar flare on January 28, 2014.Credit: NASA/IRIS/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center On Jan. 28, 2014, NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, witnessed its strongest solar flare since it launched in the summer of 2013. Solar flares are bursts of x-rays and light that stream out into space, but scientists don't yet know the fine details of what sets them off. IRIS peers into a layer of the sun's lower atmosphere just above the surface, called the chromosphere, with unprecedented resolution. However, IRIS can't look at the entire sun at the same time, so the team must always make decisions about what region might provide useful observations. On Jan. 28, scientists spotted a magnetically active region on the sun and focused IRIS on it to see how the solar material behaved under intense magnetic forces. At 2:40 p.m. EST, a moderate flare, labeled an M-class flare — which is the second strongest class flare after X-class – erupted from the area, sending light and x-rays into space. IRIS studies the layer of the sun’s atmosphere called the chromosphere that is key to regulating the flow of energy and material as they travel from the sun's surface out into space. Along the way, the energy heats up the upper atmosphere, the corona, and sometimes powers solar events such as this flare. IRIS is equipped with an instrument called a spectrograph that can separate out the light it sees into its individual wavelengths, which in turn correlates to material at different temperatures, velocities and densities. The spectrograph on IRIS was pointed right into the heart of this flare when it reached its peak, and so the data obtained can help determine how different temperatures of plasma flow where, giving scientists more insight into how flares work. Related pages