Five Year Time-lapse of SDO

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  • 
    ID: 12144 Produced Video

    SDO: Year 6

    Feb. 12th, 2016
    (updated May 3rd, 2023)

    This ultra-high definition (3840x2160) video shows the sun in the 171 angstrom wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. It covers a time period of January 2, 2015 to January 28, 2016 at a cadence of one frame every hour, or 24 frames per day. This timelapse is repeated with narration by solar scientist Nicholeen Viall and contains close-ups and annotations. 171 angstrom light highlights material around 600,000 Kelvin and shows features in the upper transition region and quiet corona of the sun. The video is available to download here at 59.94 frames per second, double the rate YouTube currently allows for UHD content. The music is titled "Tides" and is from Killer Tracks.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11755 Produced Video

    Solar Exposures

    March 10th, 2015
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    See a five-year time-lapse of the sun. || As kids, we’re taught to not look directly into the sun. Now, a time-lapse video created from observations by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, spacecraft provides an opportunity to catch up on what we’ve been missing. Since its launch in 2010, the spacecraft has captured images of the sun 24 hours a day in specific wavelengths of light that allow scientists to see solar material of different temperature as well as changes to the sun’s surface and atmosphere. The time-lapse video features more than 5,000 images taken by SDO over the last five years. The images are spaced eight hours apart, which is too infrequent to catch fast-moving bursts like solar flares, but allows a close look at solar activity taking place over longer timescales. Watch the video to see five years in the life of our sun. ||

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  • 
    ID: 11742 Produced Video

    SDO: Year 5

    Feb. 11th, 2015
    (updated Aug. 25th, 2023)

    Highlights from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's five years of watching the sun.The music is "Expanding Universe" and "Facing the Unknown" both from Killer Tracks.Watch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.For complete transcript, click here.Information about the individual clips used in this video is here.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO || February 11, 2015 marks five years in space for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which provides incredibly detailed images of the whole sun 24 hours a day. Capturing an image more than once per second, SDO has provided an unprecedentedly clear picture of how massive explosions on the sun grow and erupt ever since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010. The imagery is also captivating, allowing one to watch the constant ballet of solar material through the sun's atmosphere, the corona. In honor of SDO's fifth anniversary, NASA has released a video showcasing highlights from the last five years of sun watching. Watch the movie to see giant clouds of solar material hurled out into space, the dance of giant loops hovering in the corona, and huge sunspots growing and shrinking on the sun's surface. The imagery is an example of the kind of data that SDO provides to scientists. By watching the sun in different wavelengths – and therefore different temperatures – scientists can watch how material courses through the corona, which holds clues to what causes eruptions on the sun, what heats the sun's atmosphere up to 1,000 times hotter than its surface, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move.Five years into its mission, SDO continues to send back tantalizing imagery to incite scientists' curiosity. For example, in late 2014, SDO captured imagery of the largest sun spots seen since 1995 as well as a torrent of intense solar flares. Solar flares are bursts of light, energy and X-rays. They can occur by themselves or can be accompanied by what's called a coronal mass ejection, or CME, in which a giant cloud of solar material erupts off the sun, achieves escape velocity and heads off into space. In this case, the sun produced only flares and no CMEs, which, while not unheard of, is somewhat unusual for flares of that size. Scientists are looking at that data now to see if they can determine what circumstances might have led to flares eruptions alone. Goddard built, operates and manages the SDO spacecraft for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington, D.C. SDO is the first mission of NASA's Living with a Star Program. The program's goal is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society. ||

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