The images that make up this impressive NASA sequence were obtained using the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) .
NASA once again shows the wonders of the main star of our solar system using the time lapse technique. The Goddard Space Flight Center of the US agency published a one-hour sequence where 133 days of life on the Sun are condensed. Characteristics of this great star such as the formation of plasma loops are the main protagonists of the video.
Through the official channel of NASA Goddard on YouTube , this time lapse sequence formed thanks to images obtained with the help of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was published . The latter is a spacecraft launched in 2010 as a primary part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration ‘s Living With a Star (LWS) program .
Although the main mission of the program lasted about five years, NASA notes that the SDO will remain active until 2030 and will be able to support other initiatives.
133 days in the Sun
Regarding the images that make up the video published by NASA Goddard , the agency shared that these were captured 108 seconds apart in extreme ultraviolet wavelength compared to SDO’s Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) . On the other hand, the Observatory is located in a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 kilometers above Earth and the Sun rotates every 27 days, which means that the appearance of the star’s surface is constantly changing.
According to what researchers from the US space agency mention, the Solar Dynamics Observatory records an overwhelming amount of information with approximately 70,000 images. This represents a total of up to 1.5TB of data to build the sequence.
133 days in the Sun
Regarding the images that make up the video published by NASA Goddard , the agency shared that these were captured 108 seconds apart in extreme ultraviolet wavelength compared to SDO’s Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) . On the other hand, the Observatory is located in a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 kilometers above Earth and the Sun rotates every 27 days, which means that the appearance of the star’s surface is constantly changing.
According to what researchers from the US space agency mention, the Solar Dynamics Observatory records an overwhelming amount of information with approximately 70,000 images. This represents a total of up to 1.5TB of data to build the sequence.
A revealing time lapse
As you can see in the video, the SDO is a data source with impressive capacity because its goal is to understand the Sun as well as possible so that scientists can understand and predict space weather that can be serious for the state of satellites, power grids and other devices. The Observatory plays an important role in this initiative.
In addition, the SDO is not totally abandoned in the study of the great star. Other devices such as ESA ‘s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) have been studying the Sun since they were launched back in 1995. On the other hand, in 2018, NASA sent the Parker Solar Probe into space, which soon became the closest man-made object to the sun’s surface. Finally, the European agency returned to the charge with its Solar Orbiter , a ship that will capture the closest images of the Sun and will also analyze its polar regions.