NASA: video of the results of three-year observations of the Sun

NASA has released a four-minute video from three years of solar observations of the Solar Dynamics Observatory ( SDO ) spacecraft . The agency sets the goal of this mission to study the influence of the Sun on our planet and equipped SDO with solid shooting equipment: the resulting image with a size of 4096 × 4096 pixels allows you to examine details on the surface of a star with an angular size of 0.6 ". The device takes pictures at 10 different wavelengths and sends to command point snapshot every 12 seconds, which is about 3 terabytes of data per day or 1 petabyte per

year.Shots of the Sun, from which the video is collected, were taken at a wavelength of 171 angstroms (10 ⁻¹⁰m) (which corresponds to invisible ultraviolet radiation), and they demonstrate solar matter with a temperature of about 600,000 K. Moreover, it is noticeable in the video that the Sun changes its size somewhat - this is due to the different position of the SDO relative to the Sun during the observation period.

Starting at about 2:37 a.m., the video shows a solar disk taken at a wavelength of 4,500 angstroms, which corresponds to the visible range of the solar radiation spectrum, which allows you to see, so to speak, the "natural light" of the Sun. In addition, against the background of the disk of the Sun, one can also notice a number of astronomical events:

• 00:30:24 Partial lunar eclipse. Almost an instant — about half of the moon’s disk appears at the top of the sun.
• 01:11:02 The peak of x-ray radiation (flash) on the Sun, which occurred on August 9, 2011 with a maximum score of X6.9 for the 24th cycle of solar activity.
• 01:28:07 Passage of comet Lovejoy on December 15, 2011.
• 01:51:07 One of the rare astronomical phenomena is the last (in time) passage of Venus through the solar disk on June 5, 2012. The next passage will occur only in 2117.

For amateurs and professionals, there is also a much more detailed video (1920x1080, mov) of 3 GB in size, which can be downloaded here . On the same site, you can take ultra-high-quality (7282 x 4096, tif , 85 MB; or a little smaller 4096 x 4096, jpeg , 14 MB; there are even fewer - ideal for wallpaper on your desktop) images of the Sun in various formats.

[ Source ]