133 Days on Sun

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 tocome, 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 This video can be freely shared

and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14263.

While the video in its entirety can be shared without

permission, the music and some individual imagery may

have been obtained through permission and may not be

excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on

such imagery may be found here:

https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14263. For more information on

NASA's media guidelines, visit

https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines. Video

Description: On the left side of the frame is the full circle

of the Sun. It appears in a golden yellow color, but

splotchy and with thin yellow wisps extending from the

surface. Some areas are very bright and others almost

black. The whole Sun rotates steadily, with one full

rotation taking 12 minutes in this time lapse. There are

usually only a few bright regions visible at a time and they

shift and flash like small fires. From these regions there

are wispy loops reaching up above the surface that rapidly

change shape and size. On the right side of the frame are

two white-outlined squares with enlargements of

interesting regions of the Sun. If you liked this video,

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