NASA has released a stunning collage of the Sun, a composite of multiple images of our parent star taken by the SDO space observatory. Each image captures a different region, activity, and phenomenon on the Sun at different wavelengths. Studying the phenomena at different wavelengths reveals to scientists the movement of particles and heat within the Sun's atmosphere.
The observations
The unit of measurement for wavelengths is the Angstrom, and SDO makes observations at ten wavelengths on both the surface and the various layers of the Sun's atmosphere. It also makes observations in regions of the Sun that have intense magnetic activity.
The areas in the collage where sunlight has a yellow-green hue belong to the surface of the star where temperatures of 5,700 degrees Celsius develop. The areas with intense ultraviolet light consist of matter whose temperature exceeds six million degrees Celsius!
