NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

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Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) provides crystal-clear images of features on the sun's surface. This video shows a whirl of a new developing sunspot colliding with an existing spot that explodes into a major solar flare. This solar flare, captured on December 13, 2006, produced high-energy protons that reached the Earth at the time of STS-116 Space Shuttle flight. The flare is shown in three different wavelengths. (NASA/JAXA)

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Sunspots contain a strong magnetic field. Scientists believe that this magnetic field is generated by flows of plasma and gas deep below the surface of the sun, in the process called a dynamo. With Hinode, scientists discovered a new class of dynamo, referred to as a "chaotic dynamo" that is visible on the surface of the sun, called the photosphere. (NASA/JAXA)

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Hinode captures this very dynamic movie of the chromosphere. The chromosphere is a thin "layer" of solar atmosphere "sandwiched" between visible surface, photosphere, and corona. The chromosphere is the source of ultraviolet radiation. Before these images, scientists thought the chromosphere was a motionless "layer." Hinode shows that this description is obsolete. The observatory reveals a chromosphere that appears as constantly moving field lines like grassland with tall grass swaying under the wind. (NASA/JAXA)

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The large frame shows a solar flare on the limb of the sun taken by Hinode's Solar Optical Telescope (SOT). The small box shows the same flare captured by the X-ray Telescope (XRT). The combination of these two images shows how interconnected and dynamic are the processes throughout the solar atmosphere. (NASA/JAXA)

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The sun's outer atmosphere, known as corona, is the spawning ground for the largest explosions in the solar system. By combining observations from Hinode's optical, X-ray, and Extreme Ultraviolet imaging instruments, scientists will be able to study how changes in the sun's magnetic field trigger powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections that affect the Earth. (NASA/JAXA)

For more information, contact:
Dwayne Brown
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1726

Steve Roy
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034