Image List

This partial image of the Sun was featured on the cover of the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Science. It was taken by Hinode's X-ray Telescope, an instrument designed and built by astronomers at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. XRT showed that the Sun bristles with hundreds of X-ray jets every day, which contribute a significant fraction of the fast solar wind. By studying X-ray jets, astronomers hope to better understand their more powerful cousins, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.