Video of sun’s surface shows solar rain, eruptions and coronal moss

Ethereal scenes of flowing super-heated material may help explain why atmosphere is hotter than surface

The sun's otherworldly landscape, including coronal moss, solar rain and 6,000-mile-tall spires of gas, is revealed in footage from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft.

The observations, beamed back by the European Space Agency probe, reveal feathery, hair-like structures made of plasma and also capture eruptions and showers of relatively cooler material falling to the surface.