Last week, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) satellite reportedly captured an image of what looks like “a happy face pattern on the sun” in what the American space agency referred to as an image of the “smiling” sun.
“Today, (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun ‘smiling.’ Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space.” The space agency wrote on Twitter.
The image was obtained through the agency’ Solar Dynamics Observatory department whose mission is “aimed at investigating how solar activity is created and drives space weather.” Solar Dynamics Observatory was first launched on 11 February 2010; it primarily measures the sun’s interior, atmosphere, magnetic field and energy output.
The photo elicited mixed reactions online with some people likening it to “a carved Halloween pumpkin, a lion and the sun featured in the children’s show Teletubbies.”
However, experts warned that the holes that appear in the image suggest that “sun’s coronal holes may mean a solar storm hitting Earth. Spaceweather.com, on the other hand, said: “The cheerful mein [sic] is spewing a triple stream of solar wind toward Earth.”
