This video chronicles solar exercise from Aug. 12 to Dec. 22, 2022, as captured by NASA’s Photo voltaic Dynamics Observatory (SDO). From its orbit in space round Earth, SDO has steadily imaged the sun in 4K x 4K decision for almost 13 years. This data has enabled numerous new discoveries in regards to the workings of our closest star and the way it influences the solar system.
With a triad of devices, SDO captures a picture of the sun each 0.75 seconds. The Atmospheric Imaging Meeting (AIA) instrument alone captures photographs each 12 seconds at 10 completely different wavelengths of sunshine. This 133-day time lapse showcases photographs taken at a wavelength of 17.1 nanometers, which is an extreme-ultraviolet wavelength that reveals the sun’s outermost atmospheric layer: the corona.
Compiling photographs taken 108 seconds aside, the film condenses 133 days, or about 4 months, of solar observations into 59 minutes. The video reveals shiny energetic areas passing throughout the face of the sun because it rotates. The sun rotates roughly as soon as each 27 days. The loops extending above the intense areas are magnetic fields which have trapped sizzling, glowing plasma. These shiny areas are additionally the supply of solar flares, which seem as shiny flashes as magnetic fields snap collectively in a course of referred to as magnetic reconnection.
Whereas SDO has stored an unblinking eye pointed towards the sun, there have been a number of moments it missed. A few of the darkish frames within the video are brought on by Earth or the moon eclipsing SDO as they go between the spacecraft and the sun. Different blackouts are brought on by instrumentation being down or information errors. SDO transmits 1.4 terabytes of information to the bottom each day. The pictures the place the sun is off-center had been noticed when SDO was calibrating its devices.
SDO and different NASA missions will proceed to look at our sun within the years to come back, offering additional insights about our place in space and data to maintain our astronauts and belongings secure.
The video’s music is a steady combine from Lars Leonhard’s “Geometric Shapes” album, courtesy of the artist.
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Video: 133 days on the sun (2023, January 9)
retrieved 10 January 2023
from https://phys.org/information/2023-01-video-days-sun.html
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