Stunning close-up images of the Sun show its dynamic magnetic structures and extreme temperatures captured by ESA’s Solar Orbiter in collaboration with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe.

This otherworldly, ever-changing landscape (see video below) is a close-up view of the Sun. The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter captured the transition from the Sun’s lower atmosphere to the much hotter outer corona. The hair-like structures consist of charged gas (plasma) that follows magnetic field lines emanating from the Sun’s interior.

While the brightest regions are around a million degrees Celsius, the cooler material appears dark because it absorbs the radiation.

This video was captured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument on Solar Orbiter on September 27, 2023. At the time, the spacecraft was about one-third the Earth’s distance from the Sun, heading for a maximum distance of 27 million miles (43 million km) on October 7, 2023.

On the day this video was captured, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was just 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface. Instead of imaging the Sun directly, Parker measures particles and the magnetic field in the Sun’s corona and solar wind. Teaming up with the ESA-led Solar Orbiter remote sensing instruments, which then observed the source of the solar wind passing by Parker Solar Probe, was a great opportunity for two missions.

Find moss, spikes, explosions and rain

Bottom left: An intriguing feature seen in this movie is the bright gas that creates fine, lace-like patterns on the Sun. This is called coronal “moss”. It usually occurs around the base of large coronal rings, which are either too hot or too thin to be seen at the selected instrument settings.

At the solar horizon: Towers of gas known as spicules emerge from the Sun’s chromosphere. They can reach altitudes of 10,000 km (6,200 mi).

Center about 0:22: Small explosion in the middle of the field of view, with cooler material coming up and mostly falling down. Don’t let the word “small” fool you: This explosion is bigger than the Earth!

Center left around 0:30: “Cold” coronal rain (probably less than 10,000°C/18,000°F) appears dark against the bright background of the large coronal rings (about a million degrees Celsius). The rain consists of high-density plasma clots that fall back to the Sun under the influence of gravity.