This space wallpaper of the sun was taken on Aug. 14, 2013 from the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany. It was taken using a H-Alpha filter (a narrow band filter that lets through only those wavelengths that are very close to 656.28 nanometers, the Alpha emission band of hydrogen, an element that is abundant in the sun. The H-Alpha wavelength happens to be in the red part of the visible spectrum, which is why the sun appears very red in this image. This is something different from the red sun we see at sunrise and sunset. This image was released Aug. 14, 2013.
