NASA JAXA Hinode - Flare Now & Later Rain, April 16, 2012

The Solar Optical Telescope on NASA/JAXA’s Hinode spacecraft observed the April 16, 2012 solar flare from Active Region 1461 over the eastern limb of the Sun. After the eruption blobs of plasma are falling back to the surface of the Sun. Coronal rain has long been a mystery and thanks to spacecrafts like Hinode and SDO, this phenomena can be studied in much more detail. Just look at this event from almost exactly 1 year ago. On April 19, 2012 SDO observed this Coronal Rain event. A color-coded temperature movie of the eruption. Red and oranges are cool (60,000 K - 80,000 K); blues and greens are hot (1,000,000 - 2,200,000 K). The black “hair-like object“ is a speck of dust on the CCD camera. Solar flares are sudden releases of energy on the solar surface lasting several minutes to a few hours. They occur when magnetic fields on the sun’s surface get tangled an