On Sept. 10, 2014, NASA's newest solar observatory, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph mission joined other telescopes to witness an X-class flare – an example of one of the strongest solar flares — on the sun.
Two views of an X-class solar flare on Sept. 10, 2014. NASA’s newest solar observatory, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, mission joined other telescopes, including NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, to witness an X-class flare on the sun. IRIS, shown on the left, focuses on the lower regions of the sun’s atmosphere, the chromosphere and transition region. The SDO imagery, shown on the right, shows a region that is hotter and above that in the sun’s corona.
Image credit: NASA/IRIS; SDO/LMSAL/Wiessinger