In a new video released by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the sun can be seen erupting solar materials out of its surface. The close-up video was taken from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) from Nov. 3-5, 2015.
The video, which lasted for 20 seconds, shows an active area close to the right-hand edge of the sun's disk, which flared up with a minimum of 12 minor events within the span of 30 hours.
The magnetic forces were seen contending with each other alongside the tongues of fire or solar objects whipping out of the sun's surface and numerous small flashes glowing. The flares were observed as white flashes in an intense ultraviolet wavelength of 304 angstroms.
"Though the sun's extreme ultraviolet light is invisible to our eyes, the wavelength is colorized here in red," explained NASA.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory is the first mission launched under the administration's Living With a Star (LWS) Program, which is designed to comprehend the causes of solar variability and its effects on Earth. To achieve this, SDO studies the solar atmosphere in small ranges of time and space and in multiple wavelengths at the same time.
By determining how the sun's magnetic field is created and arranged, as well as how stored magnetic energy is translated and emitted into the geospace, SDO can achieve its goal of understanding solar variations which affect the systems of the Earth and humans.
SDO will also investigate on the manner in which solar activity is formed and how the weather in space is derived from the said activity. The main data products of SDO are the measurements of the sun's interior, solar magnetic field, hot plasma of the solar corona and the irradiance that form the planets' ionospheres.
The SDO spacecraft is semi-autonomous and points directly towards the sun, enabling it to perform almost continuous observations of the sun via constant science information downlink rate of 130 megabits per second. The spacecraft measures 4.5 meters (14.7 feet) in height and over two meters (6.5 feet) on each side. The total weight of SDO, including fuel, is 3,100 kilograms.
SDO was launched on February 11, 2010 from Cape Canaveral.
