NASA Released an Hour-long Time-Lapse Video Showing 133 Days of the Sun's Life
From a series of images taken by cameras of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft, NASA specialists have created a stunning video showing how the Sun's surface has changed over 133 days.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center has released a 59-minute time-lapse video showing 133 days of the life of our Sun, from August 12 to December 22, 2022.
The video shows the chaotic surface of the Sun, with large loops of plasma arching above the star along magnetic field lines. Sometimes the looping plasma reconnects to the star, and sometimes it is ejected into space, creating dangerous space weather.
This video is based on images taken 108 seconds apart in the extreme ultraviolet range by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The spacecraft was launched into space in 2010 and is located in a geosynchronous orbit 22,000 km above the Earth's surface.
The observatory records permanent changes on the surface of the star and also explores the star's interior, its magnetic field, and the hot plasma in the solar corona. SDO captures about 70,000 images a day, totaling up to 1.5TB of data. The spacecraft has helped scientists create "…one of the richest and biggest repositories of solar image data available to mankind."