Science
IRIS
Solar Observatory · NASA / Lockheed Martin
Right now
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The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph studies the 'missing link' of solar physics: the thin transition zone between the Sun's cool surface and its mysteriously superheated corona. IRIS photographs this region — just a couple of hundred miles thick — at a resolution down to 150 miles, small enough to resolve features the size of a US city. Every image it takes shows violent plasma jets and waves that are slowly solving the 60-year mystery of why the corona runs millions of degrees hotter than the surface below it.
Its orbit
- Orbit
- Low Earth Orbitcan appear as a fast-moving star at dawn or dusk
- Altitude
- 371–392 mi (597–632 km)
- Inclination
- 97.9°
- One orbit
- 96.8 minutes14.9 orbits a day
- NORAD ID
- 39197
- Int’l designator
- 2013-033A
- Launched
- 2013
Orbital elements from CelesTrak, as of 22 Sep 2026.