How can you make an eclipse picture even cooler? You construct a composite image of the view from Earth and space, that's how.
The picture above was composed after the total solar eclipse in March, and provides us with a phenomenal view of the solar corona – the aura of incredibly hot plasma that envelops our star.
The photo combines a false-color image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), which can be seen in red, and the innermost true-color image from the ground, where the corona appears white over the blue sky.
These types of observations are much more than just pretty pictures, though. They allow for a detailed study of the complex magnetic activity of the Sun. The magnetic activity of the corona is thought to be responsible for solar storms, which cause aurorae on Earth.
