The sun exhibits extreme weather: solar flares, sunspots, and stellar wind are part of our popular understanding of the sun’s behavior. But rain? On the sun?
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite recorded stunning footage of a phenomenon called “coronal rain.” Sometimes the plasma ejected from the sun’s surface doesn’t travel very far before it cools and begins to fall back to the surface. Usually, we can’t see this happening. In this instance, the sun’s magnetic field channeled the plasma back to the surface along magnetic lines, which are seen as the arcs of falling material in this video.