Saturday, February 11, 2012

SDO does it again

No time for a lengthy post, but I had to share this video released from the Solar Dynamics Observatory.  Incidentally, today marks the second anniversary of the SDO launch....Just think, it is only over the past year and a half that humans have been able to observe the dynamic behavior of our star in high definition!



According to SDO: "As if it could not make up its mind . . . darker, cooler plasma slid and shifted back and forth above the Sun's surface seen here for 30 hours (Feb. 7-8, 2012) in extreme ultraviolet light. An active region rotating into view provides a bright backdrop to the gyrating streams of plasma. The particles are being pulled this way and that by competing magnetic forces. They are tracking along strands of magnetic field lines. This kind of detailed solar observation with high-resolution frames and a four-minute cadence was not possible until SDO, which launched two years ago on Feb. 11, 2010."

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