SOLAR CORONAL LOOPS SEEN FROM NASA TRACE CRAFT, 2000-09-26 (photo)

Giant fountains of fast-moving, multimillion-degree gas in the outermost atmosphere of the Sun have revealed an important clue to a long-standing mystery - the location of the heating mechanism that makes the corona about 300 times hotter than the Sun's visible surface. NASA scientists announced September 26, 2000 that their new observations from the TRACE spacecraft reveal that most of the heating occurs low in the corona, within about 10,000 miles from the Sun's visible surface. The gas fountains emating from the surface form arches (some more than 300,000 miles high) and are heated and rise while flowing along the solar magnetic field. The gas then cools and crashes back to the surface at more than 60 miles per second. This image is a false color picture of ultraviolet light emitted by the hot gas that comprises the coronal loops. ME