The Twitter account for NASA's heliophysics department called it a 'smiling' sun. Other users saw the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from 'Ghostbusters,' a lion, a blobfish or various snack foods.
A NASA observatory captured what appeared to be a jack-o'-lantern-esque smile on the sun's surface, showing what are actually splotches on the sun's surface that are cooler than the surrounding areas.
The official Twitter account for NASA's heliophysics department referred to it simply as a"smiling" sun, while the United Kingdom's Science and Technology Facilities Council weighed in by photoshopping a pumpkin into the picture, turning it into a jack-o'-lantern. The dark areas that make up the facial pattern, however, are what are called coronal holes, which appear as irregular black patches when the sun is imaged in ultraviolet light or certain types of X-ray images, according to the space agency.
Their magnetic field structure also sets up coronal holes to release streams of solar wind, or charged particles, at speeds of more than 1 million miles per hour . These winds are powerful enough to reach Earth. Our planet's magnetic field, which acts as a shield, largely deflects solar wind activity, but it can disturb the atmosphere.
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