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Five decades later, scientists are still trying to unlock the mysteries of these phenomena known as the Van Allen Belts. As solar wind and cosmic rays carry fast-moving, highly energized particles past Earth, scientists think some of these particles become trapped by the planet's magnetic field. The resulting belts, one inner and one outer, can swell or shrink in size in response to incoming particles from Earth's upper atmosphere and changes in the solar wind. But sometimes the belts don't change when scientists expect them to. New NASA spacecraft scheduled to launch in August 2012 seek to determine what kinds of solar outbursts and other space weather cause specific changes in the radiation belts—answering some of the questions first raised decades ago. The visualization shows the belts responding to a strong, steady burst of material and energy from the sun. || ", "release_date": "2012-07-19T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:55.388368-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 475138, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011000/a011013/RBSPbeltcover_576.jpg", "filename": "RBSPbeltcover_576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Two regions of fast, energetic particles surround the planet with plasma and scientific questions.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10986, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10986/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "A Star's Spiral", "description": "NASA-supported researchers using a Japanese telescope in Hawaii have taken the first clear image of a rare sight: a star surrounded by a spiral-armed disk. Telescope images have shown hints of stars with spiral disks before. The clarity of this new image, however, is allowing researchers to study what causes this kind of spiral. Rings called circumstellar disks—composed of gas, dust and an accumulation of small objects—surround some stars. If the ring contains planets, their gravitational pull could alter its circular form and create the spiral arms. These videos take a closer look at the new image of star SAO 206462 and raise the question of whether orbiting planets, or something else entirely, created this curious shape. || ", "release_date": "2012-06-26T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:59.196552-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 476222, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010986/597027main_SAO206462_dust_arms_nolabels_1280x720.jpg", "filename": "597027main_SAO206462_dust_arms_nolabels_1280x720.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "What created the unusual spiral arms surrounding this star?", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 10965, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10965/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Visions Of Venus", "description": "On June 5-6, 2012, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured beautiful, high-definition images of an astronomical event that occurs only twice every hundred years or so: the transit of Venus, when the planet passes directly between the sun and Earth. Such images could not have been envisioned when a ground telescope was first used to see the transit in 1639. Indeed, the imagery even improves on that captured during the last transit in 2004, before SDO was in orbit. During the event, scientists used the precise details about the position of Venus and the sharpness of its edges to help calibrate space telescopes, ensuring even better observations in the future. In the videos below, watch Venus dance across the face of the sun, as viewed by SDO in multiple wavelengths, and see the planet's approach leading up to the transit. || ", "release_date": "2012-06-07T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2025-01-06T01:22:18.897373-05:00", "main_image": { "id": 475488, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010965/193_Egress_Complete-576.jpg", "filename": "193_Egress_Complete-576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Backlit by the sun, seen here at 193 angstroms, Venus completes its last transit until 2117.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10971, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10971/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Super Blooms", "description": "Turbulent storms churn the ocean in winter, adding nutrients to sunlit waters near the surface. This sparks a feeding frenzy each spring that gives rise to massive blooms of phytoplankton. Tiny molecules found inside these microscopic plants harvest vital energy from sunlight through photosynthesis. The natural pigments, called chlorophyll, allow phytoplankton to thrive in Earth's oceans and enable scientists to monitor blooms from space. Satellites reveal the location and abundance of phytoplankton by detecting the amount of chlorophyll present in coastal and open waters—the higher the concentration, the larger the bloom. Observations show blooms typically last until late spring or early summer, when nutrient stocks are in decline and predatory zooplankton start to graze. The visualization below uses NASA SeaWiFS data to map bloom populations in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans from March 2003 to October 2006. || ", "release_date": "2012-05-08T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:05.443170-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 476403, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010971/COVER-north_pacific_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "COVER-north_pacific_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Marine plants multiply and take over the seas.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10954, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10954/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Rattling Earth's Force Field", "description": "A giant magnetic bubble surrounds Earth, shielding our planet from the sheer power of the sun. Invisible to the human eye, the bubble—called the magnetosphere—is fairly round on the side that faces the sun, and then forms long, spaghetti-like strands that trail behind Earth and move in concert with the constant stream of magnetized particles known as the solar wind. The magnetosphere protects Earth from the brunt of the sun's energetic outbursts. But some gigantic eruptions of solar material, called coronal mass ejections, can nonetheless compress the shape of the magnetosphere, creating a geomagnetic storm. During strong geomagnetic storms, the fluctuation of magnetism and electricity near Earth can interfere with communication and GPS satellites, induce electrical surges in power grids on the ground and light up the skies with auroras. Watch the visualization below to see the shape of the magnetosphere that surrounds and cradles Earth, protecting it from the sun's explosions. || ", "release_date": "2012-04-24T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:07.023230-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 477356, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010954/auroraparticles_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "auroraparticles_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Energy funneled along compressed magnetic field lines creates auroras when the energized lines intersect.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10931, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10931/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Moon Struck", "description": "Long before the first humans gazed up into the velvety blackness of the night sky, the moon was young and fresh-faced. These were the early days, before the patchwork of inky stains called the Man in the Moon, before the brilliant starburst patterns called ray craters decorated the surface, before a colossal crash turned one-fifth of its real estate into the South Pole-Aitken basin. Fast-forward to the present, and the moon's once smooth contour appears flawed and disfigured, punished by explosive volcanic eruptions and raining interstellar objects that bombarded its surface over eons. In the visualizations below, see some of the clearest views of the moon yet, courtesy of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, and witness a recreation of the destructive, 4.5-billion-year evolution of Earth's natural satellite. || ", "release_date": "2012-03-15T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:11.879870-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 478195, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010931/cover_maria_impacts_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "cover_maria_impacts_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The brutal secret of how the moon got the scarred face we know and love.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10918, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10918/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Galactic Lobes", "description": "Scientists have discovered gigantic structures 25,000 light-years tall ballooning above and below the Milky Way. Within each curved lobe, extremely energetic electrons of unknown origin interact with lower-energy light to generate the gamma rays that define these bubbles. The galactic-scale structures could be remnants from a burst of star formation or leftovers from an eruption by the supermassive black hole at our galaxy's center. Scientists aren't sure yet, but the more they learn about this amazing structure, which may be only a few million years old, the better we'll understand the Milky Way. While not immediately visible to NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, these unexpected features were brought into sharp relief by a group of scientists who processed data from Fermi's all-sky map. The visualization below shows how artists imagine the lobes would appear if gamma rays were visible to the naked eye. || ", "release_date": "2012-03-01T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:14.421619-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 478606, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010918/GRbubbles_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "GRbubbles_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Gamma rays radiate from the Milky Way's center, but where do they come from?", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10917, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10917/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "\"Alien\" Material", "description": "No man-made object has yet to slip the bounds of our solar system and enter interstellar space. But we can measure some of the atoms that make their way into the solar system from the outside. Crossing this boundary, they travel 7.5 billion miles over 30 years until some of them hit the detector on NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) satellite. In 2009 and 2010, IBEX detected neon and oxygen atoms, and in doing so gave scientists the most complete glimpse yet of interstellar material. The results? It's an alien environment out there. The interstellar material has less oxygen in any given slice than anywhere in our solar system. This suggests that the solar system evolved in a separate, more oxygen-rich part of the galaxy or that critical, life-giving oxygen lies trapped in interstellar dust grains or ices. Either way, this affects our understanding of how the solar system, and life, formed. Watch in the videos below to see how IBEX detected this \"alien\" material. || ", "release_date": "2012-02-28T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:14.553595-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 478788, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010917/ibex_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "ibex_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Understanding the material from beyond our solar system tells of our past and evolution.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10901, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10901/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Temperature Rising", "description": "Even with the complexities of climate change, scientists still take the planet's pulse with a basic benchmark measurement—temperature. The world has experienced nine of the 10 warmest years on record since 2000. And in 2011, the ninth warmest year since 1880, the average temperature was nearly a full degree warmer (0.92 Fahrenheit) than the 1951-1980 average, which is used as a baseline for comparison. Scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies compute Earth's long-term temperature trend by analyzing readings from thousands of ground-based weather stations and sea surface temperature data from ships and satellites. Earth's long-term warming trend remains driven primarily by an unprecedented increase in carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, created largely by increased fossil fuel burning for generating electricity and powering cars. That rate of increase has overwhelmed the prior, slow pace of atmospheric changes between geologic eras. Watch in the visualization below how temperatures across the globe have crept upward since the late 19th century. || ", "release_date": "2012-02-02T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:17.245389-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 479681, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010901/2011_cover_3840x1560_ipad_poster_frame.jpg", "filename": "2011_cover_3840x1560_ipad_poster_frame.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Human influence on global temperature continued in 2011 (seen here). NASA scientists said the year was the ninth warmest on record.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10900, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10900/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Antimatter Explosions", "description": "Thunderstorms produce more than just lightning. As these powerful storms roll over Earth, their electric fields can eject a burst of gamma rays known as a terrestrial gamma-ray flash. And now scientists have discovered that these flashes also create the asymmetrical opposite of matter—antimatter. NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope was designed to monitor gamma rays, the highest-energy form of light, in outer space. But it also observes these flashes from thunderstorms. In 2009, Fermi detected gamma rays from a thunderstorm that was located well beyond the horizon from where it could directly observe the storm. So where did the rays come from? When antimatter collides with matter, the particles annihilate and emit gamma rays. This means the gamma rays detected by Fermi could only have come from an antimatter collision with the spacecraft itself, providing the first-ever clue that these Earth-bound storms can send antimatter into space. In the videos below, see a map of terrestrial gamma-ray flashes detected by Fermi and a breakdown of how this explosive, mysterious process unfolds. || ", "release_date": "2012-01-31T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:18.384431-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 479656, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010900/a010900/tgf_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "tgf_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A NASA spacecraft discovers antimatter bursts released by thunderstorms.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10894, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10894/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Dubai's Rapid Growth", "description": "To expand the possibilities for beachfront development, Dubai undertook a massive engineering project to create hundreds of artificial islands along its Persian Gulf coastline. Built from sand dredged from the sea floor, and protected from erosion by rock breakwaters, the islands are shaped in recognizable forms such as palm trees. As the islands grew, so did the city. In 2000, the area was nearly entirely undeveloped. By 2011, whole city blocks had sprung up. Offshore, the first palm-shaped island, Palm Jumeirah, reached completion. The collection of false-color satellite images below shows the growth of Dubai—one of the United Arab Emirates—between 2000 and 2011. Taken by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA's Terra satellite, each image is produced from visible and infrared light where bare desert is tan, plant-covered land is red, water is black and urban areas are silver. || ", "release_date": "2012-01-17T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:19.748246-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 479897, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010894/dubai_ipad_front.jpg", "filename": "dubai_ipad_front.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Witness the extravagant transformation of Dubai's desert landscape between 2000 and 2011.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10834, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10834/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Magnetic Hotspots", "description": "Sunspots are the relatively cool, dark blemishes that appear on the sun's otherwise super-fiery and flawless surface. To scientists, these planet-sized phenomena indicate the location where strong magnetic fields that power solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) emerge from the sun's interior. The number of sunspots increases and decreases over time in a regular, approximately 11-year cycle, called the sunspot cycle. During each cycle sunspots migrate from the sun's mid-latitude regions towards the equator, with the highest number observed in any given cycle designated \"solar maximum\" and the lowest number designated \"solar minimum.\" Each cycle varies dramatically in number, with some solar maxima being so low as to be almost indistinguishable from the preceding minimum. Learn more about the sunspot cycle and see actual footage of sunspots in the videos below. || ", "release_date": "2011-12-22T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:22.003983-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 480328, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010834/magneticsunspots_cover_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "magneticsunspots_cover_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Like clockwork, dark spots the size of Earth speckle our sun.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10866, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10866/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Bubbles At The Edge Of The Solar System", "description": "After a three-decade journey away from Earth, the two Voyager spacecraft are approaching the outer edges of the solar system. To scientists' surprise, the satellites have revealed a region vastly different than previously modeled. The solar system's boundary is defined by a steady stream of particles known as the solar wind. The solar wind shoots out from the sun until it pushes up against the galactic medium and slows down at a line called the termination shock. Beyond this lies the heliosheath, where the solar wind's journey stops completely. Scientists thought the solar wind turned back smoothly at this point, sweeping back around the outskirts of the solar system. As seen in the video below, Voyager now shows that solar wind hits the heliosheath and piles up into a frothy layer filled with magnetic bubbles. This layer must have an affect on how intense energetic particles from the rest of the universe, called cosmic rays, make it into our solar system. But scientists have yet to figure out if the bubbles help stop the bulk of the rays, or are the prime factor that allows them to enter. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-24T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:27.068327-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 480811, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010866/87_STILL3_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "87_STILL3_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "NASA's two Voyager spacecraft reveal the frothy border of the solar system.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10841, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10841/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Perpetual Ocean", "description": "Driven by wind and other forces, currents on the ocean surface cover our planet. Some span hundreds to thousands of miles across vast ocean basins in well-defined flows. Others are confined to particular regions and form slow-moving, circular pools. Seen from space, the circulating waters offer a study in both chaos and order. The visualization below, based on ocean temperature, salinity, sea surface height and sea ice data collected during field observations and by NASA satellites between July 2005 and December 2007, highlights many of the world's most important ocean surface currents. Watch powerful, fast-moving currents like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean and the Kuroshio in the Pacific Ocean carry warm waters northeastward at speeds greater than 4 mph. View coastal currents such as the Agulhas in the Southern Hemisphere transporting equatorial waters from the Indian Ocean farther southwards. Explore the image collection to compare the direction and unique flow pattern of each of these major currents. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-10T00:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:28.980876-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 481324, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010841/perpetualocean_cover_1024x676.jpg", "filename": "perpetualocean_cover_1024x676.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Watch surface currents circulate in this high-resolution, 3D model of the Earth's oceans.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 3849, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3849/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Antarctic Ice Flow Charted From Space", "description": "Harsh snows have blanketed Antarctica for so long that the continent has built up an ice sheet a mile thick from bedrock to surface in most places. Despite the ice cap's grip on the rocky landmass below, friction can only hold back the ice so much. A new, first-of-its-kind map from NASA reveals icy Antarctica as a landscape of constant movement. NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and UC Irvine have charted this movement for the first time, using Canadian, Japanese and European satellite data to create a record of the speed and direction of ice flow across the entire continent. The map reveals glaciers and tributaries in patterned flows stretching hundreds of miles inland, like a system of rivers and creeks. Slow-moving flows found in largely unexplored East Antarctica defied previous understanding of ice migration. And scientists discovered a ridge that splits Antarctica from east to west. Explore the visualizations below to see the new benchmark map scientists can use to study the extent and speed of changes to the largest ice sheet in the world. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-25T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2024-10-06T22:02:58.992693-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 483992, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003849/antarctica_flows_1_00120_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "antarctica_flows_1_00120_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A new map changes our understanding of how ice flows across Antarctica.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } }, { "id": 10771, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10771/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "A Pinch Of Salt From Space", "description": "NASA gave the command last week to power on its newest Earth-observing satellite, Aquarius. It may seem a somewhat peculiar measurement to make, but Aquarius, which launched in June 2011, will measure salinity across all the oceans every week. The data will undoubtedly help answer some of our most pressing questions about climate change. Why measure ocean salinity? The density of ocean water is determined by salinity and water temperature. Density drives the pattern of deep ocean currents, and ocean currents drive global climate. In recent decades, scientists have seen ocean salinity shift in ways that only climate change seems able to explain. Until now, salinity data came from slow-moving ships and a network of floating sensors that could only provide a limited global picture. Satellite technology changes that: From 400 miles (644 km) above Earth Aquarius' hypersensitive microwave radiometer can detect differences in ocean salinity to within a pinch of salt in a gallon of water. Let the science begin. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-23T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:40.949018-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 484106, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010700/a010771/newaquarius.0650_web.png", "filename": "newaquarius.0650_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "What does salinity have to do with ocean currents and climate change?", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 10714, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10714/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Black Carbon: Asia's Plain Of Air Pollution", "description": "The Himalayan Plateau, a towering mass of rock on the northern edge of the Indian subcontinent, rises sharply over one of the most fertile and populous tracts of land in the world, the Indo-Gangetic Plain. Nearly a billion people crowd that plain, an area about the size of Texas. The region's explosive population growth and strong economy in recent decades have produced an unwelcome byproduct—air pollution. Burning fossil fuels, wood, vegetation and dung sends a steady stream of soot (or, black carbon, as scientists call the light-absorbing particles) aloft. Studies show India's black carbon emissions have jumped about 60 percent per decade in the last two decades. The short-lived particles typically remain in the atmosphere for less than a week, but they pool over the Indo-Gangetic plain as monsoon-fueled winds trap them along the Himalayas. The particles, the most health-sapping part of air pollution, also have a potent climate impact. Unlike most other types of particulate, black carbon absorbs radiation, warming the atmosphere and contributing to the retreat of glaciers in the area. The visualization below, based on three months of data generated by NASA's GOCART model, shows black carbon circulating throughout the region, held largely at bay by the mountain range. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-11T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:41.846318-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 484167, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010700/a010714/black_carbon02STILL_1280.jpg", "filename": "black_carbon02STILL_1280.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A region's brawny economy leaves a pall of black carbon over the Indo-Gangetic plain.", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 } }, { "id": 3832, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/3832/", "page_type": "Visualization", "title": "Extreme Solar Eruption Caught On Camera", "description": "A massive spray of high-energy particles blasted from the sun and shot into space during a magnificent solar eruption captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. The spectacular event took place on June 7, 2011 over a period of six hours when an M-2 class (medium-sized) solar flare, a large prominence eruption, and a coronal mass ejection were observed from sunspot complex 1226-1227. Scientists estimate hot plasma and powerful X-rays burst into the sun's atmosphere and exited the corona at speeds over 3 million mph. Trapped particles unable to reach escape velocity traversed the solar sky in evanescent arcs, some traveling more than 215,000 miles, and showered the surface in a speckled array of bright flashes as the fiery sphere reheated the slightly cooled material. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument on SDO recorded the event at multiple wavelengths using its extreme UV sensor and transmitted the images to Earth in awesome 16.8 mega-pixel resolution. Watch a time-lapse video of the eruption below and relive the moment. || ", "release_date": "2011-08-02T00:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:42.610339-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 484527, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a003800/a003832/a01080_1304_4k_Sun_1024x576.jpg", "filename": "a01080_1304_4k_Sun_1024x576.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "Hot plasma leaps from the sun in stunning HD.", "width": 1024, "height": 576, "pixels": 589824 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }