New Delhi: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured a huge sunspot dominating views of our solar star in recent days, between April 12-14, 2016, as it rotated across the part of the Sun.


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The image, which is single but quite large, was taken by the magnetic imager on SDO, which records the flow of plasma towards and away from the imager in strong black or strong white tones.



Sunspot regions are areas of intense magnetism so that plasma is being pulled along magnetic field lines between areas of opposite polarity.


 


This particular sunspot was fairly organized so that any eruptions from it thus far have been minor, explains NASA.


To give a sense of scale, at least three Earths could fit across the darkest area, it adds.


Launched on February 11, 2010, SDO has been obesrving the Sun n high-definition ever since. 


(Source: SDO, NASA)