133 Days on the sun

1 year ago
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This video chronicles solar activity from Aug. 12 to Dec.
22, 2022, as captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics
Observatory (SD0). From its orbit in space around Earth,
SDO has steadily imaged the Sun in 4Kx 4K resolution for
nearly 13 years. This information has enabled coutless
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.

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