Hinode’s View of Interface Region

This image from JAXA's Hinode mission shows the lower regions of the sun's atmosphere, the interface region, which a new mission called the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, will study in exquisite detail. Where previous missions have been able to image material at only a few predetermined temperatures in this region, IRIS will observe a wide range of temperatures from 5000 Kelvins to 65,000 Kelvins (and up to 10 million Kelvins during solar flares). Its images will resolve structures down to 150 miles across.