LOOK: NASA’s jack-o’-lantern sun goes viral again in time for Halloween
As families across the globe decorate their homes for Halloween festivities, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration pointed out that even celestial bodies celebrate the season, such as in the case of a “spooky” photo of the sun.
The space agency uploaded its 2014 photo of the sun looking like one of the Halloween staples—a jack-o’-lantern—last Sunday, Oct. 27, via Facebook.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which monitors the sun from its orbit in space, captured the picture in October 2014.
Even our star celebrates the spooky season — in 2014, active regions on the Sun created this jack-o'-lantern face, as…
Posted by NASA Sun Science on Sunday, October 27, 2019
The resemblance to the Halloween decor was caused by the active regions of the sun that emitted more light and energy than its other areas.
“They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona,” the space agency explained in a previous report.
The photo combined two sets of ultraviolet wavelengths, which are usually colorized in gold and yellow, to make the sun appear like the popular Halloween item.
NASA’s “spooky” image of the sun has since gone viral on Facebook with over 2,200 reactions and more than 2,000 shares, as of this writing. Ryan Arcadio /ra
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