Images: Hot news about the sun

This image was taken by Hinode's X-Ray Telescope, one of three instruments onboard Hinode. The X-Ray Telescope is designed to capture images of the sun's outer atmosphere, the corona. The corona is where explosive activity causes coronal mass ejections or solar flares.

This image reveals, for the first time, that X-ray bright points are composed of magnetic loops. The X-Ray Telescope shows details of the sun that were only seen during a solar eclipse.