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The story of how our Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago, told from the perspective of an asteroid called Bennu (which has survived until now). NASA sent a satellite to study Bennu to help us learn more about the beginning of our solar system.

On September 27th, 2015 there will be a very rare event in the night sky – a supermoon lunar eclipse. Watch this animated feature to learn more. This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11981

The Greenland Ice Sheet is a vast expanse of ice covering about 80% of Greenland's surface. It's the second-largest ice sheet in the world after the Antarctic Ice Sheet. Here's a brief summary: The Greenland Ice Sheet is an enormous mass of ice and snow that has accumulated over millennia through the accumulation and compaction of snowfall. It plays a crucial role in the Earth's climate system by reflecting sunlight and helping to regulate global temperatures. The ice sheet contains a significant amount of freshwater in the form of ice, and if it were to melt entirely, it could contribute to a significant rise in global sea levels. In recent years, concerns have been raised about the accelerated melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet due to climate change. Rising temperatures have led to increased surface melting, and the ice sheet has been losing mass through the calving of icebergs and increased meltwater runoff. This meltwater can contribute to rising sea levels and alter ocean circulation patterns. Scientists and researchers, including those at NASA, use a combination of satellite observations, airborne campaigns, and on-the-ground measurements to monitor changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet. This monitoring helps to track its mass loss, ice flow dynamics, and the overall impact of climate change on the ice sheet's stability. The study of the Greenland Ice Sheet is essential for understanding the potential consequences of climate change and its impact on sea levels and the global environment. It serves as a significant area of research for climate scientists and contributes to our understanding of Earth's complex systems.

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona. On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface. The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012. Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of artist. http://www.lars-leonhard.de/ This video is public domain and can be downloaded at: http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?11168

This video chronicles solar activity from Aug. 12 to Dec. 22, 2022, as captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). From its orbit in space around Earth, SDO has steadily imaged the Sun in 4K x 4K resolution for nearly 13 years. This information has enabled countless new discoveries about the workings of our closest star and how it influences the solar system. With a triad of instruments, SDO captures an image of the Sun every 0.75 seconds. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument alone captures images every 12 seconds at 10 different wavelengths of light. This 133-day time lapse showcases photos taken at a wavelength of 17.1 nanometers, which is an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength that shows the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer: the corona. Compiling images taken 108 seconds apart, the movie condenses 133 days, or about four months, of solar observations into 59 minutes. The video shows bright active regions passing across the face of the Sun as it rotates. The Sun rotates approximately once every 27 days. The loops extending above the bright regions are magnetic fields that have trapped hot, glowing plasma. These bright regions are also the source of solar flares, which appear as bright flashes as magnetic fields snap together in a process called magnetic reconnection. While SDO has kept an unblinking eye pointed toward the Sun, there have been a few moments it missed. Some of the dark frames in the video are caused by Earth or the Moon eclipsing SDO as they pass between the spacecraft and the Sun. Other blackouts are caused by instrumentation being down or data errors. SDO transmits 1.4 terabytes of data to the ground every day. The images where the Sun is off-center were observed when SDO was calibrating its instruments. SDO and other NASA missions will continue to watch our Sun in the years to come, providing further insights about our place in space and information to keep our astronauts and assets safe. The music is a continuous mix from Lars Leonhard’s “Geometric Shapes” album, courtesy of the artist. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Lead Producer Tom Bridgman (SVS): Lead Visualizer Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Editor