Moss on the Sun

At the center of this image (left) from NASA’s High Resolution Coronal Imager sounding rocket is a small-scale, leafy-looking structure on the Sun that solar physicists call “moss.” It forms low in the solar atmosphere above the brightest spots on the Sun where magnetic activity is strong. An image from NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, mission shows a detailed scenery of the cooler roots of moss (right).