An incredible photo of the Sun was taken by 2 extremely talented photographers. Andrew McCarthy and Jason Guenzel have created a fascinating mosaic showing the surface features of our Sun, and most impressively, a coiled plasma filament extending from the limb (outer edge) of our star.
The sun is about 109 Earths wide from side to side, and this filament spans the equivalent distance of 14 Earths. That’s about half the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
The photograph they call “The Fusion of Helios” is not a single snapshot, but an incredible mosaic of nearly 90,000 individual images taken by McCarthy and processed with Guenzel. Initially, 200,000 photos were taken to get this incredibly clear view of the entire solar disk. The churning of the photosphere, some sunspots and plasma particles, as well as dramatic hurricane-like prominence make for an incredible photo.
The team has also gone one step further. Using an image of the Solar Corona taken by Guenzel during the 2017 Great American Eclipse and combining it with data from NASA’s SOHO, they created a plausible Solar Corona that is an invisible feature of the Sun because it’s otherwise too bright. The ultimate effect is absolutely stunning, clearly a work of art filled with scientific marvel.
You can find all the photos shared on Instagram here.
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