Perihelion Sun 2023

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2023 January 14
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Perihelion Sun 2023
Image Credit & Copyright: Peter Ward (Barden Ridge Observatory)

Explanation: Perihelion for 2023, Earth's closest approach to the Sun, was on January 4 at 16:17 UTC. That was less than 24 hours after this sharp image of the Sun's disk was recorded with telescope and H-alpha filter from Sidney, Australia, planet Earth. An H-alpha filter transmits a characteristic red light from hydrogen atoms. In views of the Sun it emphasizes the Sun's chromosphere, a region just above the solar photosphere or normally visible solar surface. In this H-alpha image of the increasingly active Sun planet-sized sunspot regions are dominated by bright splotches called plages. Dark filaments of plasma snaking across the solar disk transition to bright prominences when seen above the solar limb.

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Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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