We are pleased to announce that the winner of the ESPD Media of the Month contest for October is Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta (Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research), with the following image of the solar corona:

Description: This image shows solar corona covering an active region observed using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on 2017 JUly 12. The field of view is approximately 580 Mm x 435 Mm. The various structures are created by coronal plasma that is trapped by magnetic fields. Owing to its high temperatures, often exceeding a million degrees Kelvin (MK), coronal plasma, composed of highly ionized atoms (e.g. Fe XII, Fe XV), emits brightly in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. The image is a composite of three images captured by three different EUV filters on AIA. The red (~ 5 MK), blue (~ 1-2 MK), and green (< 1 MK) shaded regions highlight plasma features at different temperatures. The origin of such high coronal temperatures is still a mystery.

See full resolution image on Wikimedia Commons.