Photo from NASA satellite shows the sun was 'smiling' this week

The sun was in a good mood this week, or at least that's what it looked like in a photo published by NASA.

A photo of the sun taken from a NASA satellite and time-stamped Thursday morning appears to show a smile on the surface of our nearest star.

It's not the first time this week the cheerful pattern appeared.

"Today, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the sun 'smiling,'" NASA said in a Wednesday tweet. "Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space."

According to SpaceWeather.com, the sun is spewing a triple stream of solar wind toward Earth. This could produce auroras here on Earth as early as Saturday, the website said.

The Solar Dynamics Observatory is a satellite that's in orbit around the Earth, with sensors pointed at the sun to take a variety of measurements of the sun and solar activity.

One of the mission's goals is to see how the sun's magnetic field is generated and structured, and how it impacts life on Earth and our telecommunications systems.