SUNSHINE AND SMILES

According to Nasa, the sun is all smiles. The American space agency – which studies Earth, its climate, the sun and our solar system – recently shared an image of the sun seen in ultraviolet light.

The dark patches on the surface, which look like two eyes and a mouth, are known as coronal holes – regions where fast solar wind streams out into space. These winds are sometimes powerful enough to reach Earth.

The images were taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, a branch in Nasa that regularly captures images of the sun and monitors its activity.