Journey Of Light
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- Written by:
- Karen Fox
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- Scientific consulting by:
- Holly Gilbert
- View full credits
The light that illuminates our planet is made deep inside the sun and takes some 40,000 years to travel through the sun’s layers. Particles of light form from atoms undergoing nuclear fusion in the sun’s innermost layer known as the core. The light then flows through the sun’s interior for millennia, slowly bubbling up like water in a boiling pot. It eventually bursts past the sun’s surface, called the photosphere, and rises into the solar atmosphere. Once in the atmosphere—made up of the chromosphere and corona—the light streams out through the solar system. Watch the video to see how light travels from the sun's interior to the surface.
Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
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Animators
- Michael Lentz (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
- Walt Feimer (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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Writer
- Karen Fox (ADNET Systems, Inc.) [Lead]
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Video editor
- Genna Duberstein (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
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Scientist
- Holly Gilbert (NASA/GSFC) [Lead]
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Producers
- Genna Duberstein (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
- Walt Feimer (KBR Wyle Services, LLC)
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ID: 20192 Animation
Space Weather
Read moreThis movie takes us on a space weather journey from the center of the sun to solar eruptions in the sun's atmosphere all the way to the effects of that activity near Earth. The view starts in the core of the sun where atoms fuse together to create light and energy. Next we travel toward the sun's surface, watching loops of magnetic fields rise up to break through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. In the corona is where we witness giant bursts of radiation and energy known as solar flares, as well as gigantic eruptions of solar material called coronal mass ejections or CMEs. The movie follows one of these CME's toward Earth where it impacts and compresses Earth's own protective magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere. As energy and particles from the sun funnel along magnetic field lines near Earth, they ultimately produce aurora at Earth's poles. ||
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