Picture of the Day

The aftermath of a solar flare

A cloud of green and gold gas fills most of the frame, with a bright blue oval structure stretching across the middle. Dark dust lanes thread through the brighter regions, and a small cluster of stars glows at the lower right.

Clawing through Cassiopeia

$A large, glowing orange-tan disk — the Sun — fills most of the frame against a black sky. A thin, dark, needle-like silhouette crosses near its left edge, trailing a bright, feathery plume that distorts and refracts the image of the disk, extending below it. A faint dark smudge of clouds sits near the center of the disk, as well as small dark specks of sunspots.s$