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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
World
Tim Baker

NASA image shows Sun 'smiling' like a Halloween pumpkin

NASA has shown off a photo of the Sun that makes it look like the galaxy's biggest Jack-o'-lantern.

The picture, which appears to the show the Sun as a gold and black orb of fire with a smiling face, was shared by the space agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) as people gear up to celebrate Hallowe'en.

The image, taken on October 2014, is of ultraviolent radiation, which is not visible to humans.

A spokesman from NASA said: "The active regions in this image appear brighter because those are areas that emit more light and energy.

"They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.

"This image blends together two sets of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths at 171 and 193 Ångströms, typically colorized in gold and yellow, to create a particularly Halloween-like appearance."

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