Kaleidoscopic View of the Sun Reveals its Hidden Features

A screenshot of a movie of the sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The pie-shaped slices show the sun in different wavelengths of light that are ordinarily invisible to our eyes. Each highlights different kinds of features on the sun's surface and in its corona. (Source: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center) The human visual system is an incredible example of natural engineering that far surpasses the very best cameras and lenses. To offer one example, on a bright day with extremely contrasty light, it can discern fine details in both the dark shadows and bright highlights — details that are all but lost in to a camera. Even so, what we can see is extremely limited compared to what's actually out there — a fact that is dramatically illustrated by the kaleidoscopic view of the sun above. It's a frame from a movie put together by NASA to illustrate the ...