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When you think of the surface of the Sun you likely imagine a veritable hellscape, one with extreme temperatures, wild solar explosions and flares. Well, that’s all true, however a recent observation by the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter is making it look all cuddly.

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00:00 [Music]
00:04 When you think of the surface of the sun, you likely imagine a veritable hellscape,
00:08 one with extreme temperatures, wild solar explosions and flares. Well, that's all true.
00:13 However, a recent observation by the European Space Agency's solar orbiter is making it look
00:18 all cuddly. This video was recently released by the ESA, showing what they call coronal moss,
00:23 or the fur-like surface on some parts of the sun. Experts say the hottest areas of the sun
00:27 reach temperatures upwards of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit. However, these fluffy areas of coronal
00:33 moss, imaged here, are so hot most instrumentation can't even tell us just how hot they are.
00:38 They say it grows around groupings of sunspots, where the sun's magnetic field lines are connecting
00:43 into loops. The coronal moss also goes through two layers of the sun's atmospheric layers as well.
00:48 The ESA also pointed out other solar structures, like these spicules, which are great spikes of
00:54 gas reaching upwards of 6,000 miles. They also pointed out coronal rain, which just like on Earth,
00:59 is much cooler than everything else you're seeing. Experts say that the temperature of
01:03 these falling high-density bits of plasma likely clock in at less than 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

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