NASA creates 'rainbow' movie of the sun based on temperature

NASA says a movie of the sun based on data from its Solar Dynamics Observatory shows its wide range of wavelengths invisible to the naked eye. The SDO converts the wavelengths into an image humans can see, and the light has been colorized into a rainbow of colors for the movie, the space agency reported Wednesday. Because each wavelength of light represents solar material at specific temperatures, viewers of the movie can note how different the same area of the sun appears at those different wavelengths, NASA said. Yellow light, for example, generally emanates from material of about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, which represents the surface of the sun, it said, while other colors represent temperatures found in the sun's atmosphere and in solar flares. By examining pictures of the sun in a variety of wavelengths, NASA said, scientists can track how particles and heat move through the sun's atmosphere. NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio created the movie at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.