Since we have a current satellite HD photo of the Sun on this page every day (courtesy of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory), we wanted to put the features seen on the Sun in perspective. See that tiny blue dot above the Sun? That’s our home, superimposed in true scale on the image of the sun.
It’s easy to see how the sun has such a tremendous influence on the Earth, and why solar power has so much promise.
Like many others who lived through the Carl SaginCosmos Era, I’m mesmerized by images of distant galaxies, nebulae, and supernovae. With billion and billions of cosmic objects to explore, it’s easy to overlook the cosmic grandeur in our own neighborhood, the Sun. (The term “neighborhood” is used in its astronomical sense, given that the Sun is nearly 93 million miles from Earth.)
Yet, Sunscapes are beautiful and richly diverse, largely because the gases that make up the Sun have been superheated to the point that they are sensitive to magnetism. The patterns we see on the surface — and deep into the interior — are those unseen magnetic fields made visible by the hot gases. It’s a bit like “seeing” the wind by watching the patterns of movement in a wheat field as wind blows across the land.
The Sunscape above was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a satellite launched in 2010 for a five-year mission studying the Sun. The SDO uses imaging devices so sensitive that the resulting data stream provides as much detail as a high-def screen. (You can read more about the SDO, here.)
The images provide scientists an unprecedented amount of data to help understand solar activity. These images also allow us to see the powerful beauty present in the Sun in ways we’ve never been able to — before the SDO.
The detailed image above was taken from the SDO daily photograph found in our widget at the top, right-hand corner of the page. To explore the full image, simply right-click on the widget photo, and choose “View image” from the drop-down menu.
Here’s a fascinating (and beautiful) video from NASA showing how the SDO works:
On April 19, AIA observed one of the largest prominence eruptions in years. The huge structure erupts, but a great deal of the plasma (hundreds of millions of tons) is unable to escape the gravitational pull of the Sun and falls back down as “plasma rain.” As the rain impacts the surface, bright flashes can be seen as the momentum is absorbed on impact. SDO is the first observatory to capture both the rain and the impacts, allowing us to learn a great deal from observations like this.
(Spoiler alert: Look for the plasma rain begin its fall at about eighteen seconds.)
And what is “plasma?” Glad you asked. According to NASA’s glossary:
A fourth state of matter (in addition to solid, liquid, and gas) that exists in space. In this state, atoms are positively charged and share space with free negatively charged electrons. Plasma can conduct electricity and interact strongly with electric and magnetic fields. The solar wind is actually hot plasma blowing from the sun.
