133 Days On The Sun || NASA

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.

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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.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Lead Producer

Tom Bridgman (SVS): Lead Visualizer

Scott Wiessinger (PAO): Editor

MAGA

The music is a continuous mix from Lars Leonhard's

"Geometric Shapes" album, courtesy of the artist.

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.