loops - the tangled Sun

TRACE looks at the atmosphere of the Sun in great detail. These details show us exactly what the magnetic field of the Sun is doing.

TRACE shows us a very different view of the Sun to the one we are used to here on Earth.

You might think that the Sun's atmosphere is just a dull, fairly fuzzy ball of fire. If you were to study the Sun's surface in ordinary visible light, that's more or less what you'd see, but that's not what TRACE sees!

The ultraviolet light which created these images is produced by plasma at one million degrees (1,000,000°C).

Here's a close-up view of a tangle of loops as well as bright spots and spikey features.

Because it can see very fine detail on the Sun, TRACE is said to have high resolution.
Images from other spacecraft that have lower resolution look blurred and fuzzy in comparison. TRACE rules!

Our eyes can't see ultraviolet radiation, so an image of ultraviolet radiation has to be shown in 'false colour' - that just means we can use any colour we like.

This image is a false-colour picture of the Sun, we just like the look of it in blue! Here are some other false colour pictures. Actually they are all the same image. We've just chosen to use different colours for each one.

Have a go at this game, which illustrates the effect higher resolution can have on an image. Click on the arrows under the photos to increase the resolution. At what stage can you guess who the famous person is?