The bright spots in this X-ray image of the sun, taken by the Hinode Satellite's
X-ray Telescope in October 2006, are active regions of the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, that are the source of solar flares and powerful coronal mass ejections. The X-ray Telescope, developed by scientists at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., was designed to capture images of the sun's corona. By combining observations from the optical and X-ray telescopes carried aboard the Hinode satellite, scientists can study how changes in the sun's magnetic field trigger powerful explosions in its corona. (Image courtesy of JAXA, NASA and PPARC)