193Å Running Difference Image

This is a running difference image, a simple graph representing the differences between two images gathered at different times. This one was made using the SDO AIA 193Å data from 00:30 and 01:30 on 2012-02-20. The original pair of images show us thermal characteristics of the Sun's corona, a region with temperatures typically around 1.25 million K, or about 2.25 million degrees Fahrenheit. This part of the Sun's atmosphere is tens of thousands of kilometers above the photosphere. The photosphere is the part that emits the light we see. The source images were acquired an hour apart, and the single image you see above is the result of processing them into a running difference graph.