NASA releases stunning five-year time lapse of Sun

NASA released footage that captured one frame of the Sun every eight hours from June 2010 to Feb. 8, 2015, to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The observatory, or SDO, aims to improve our understanding of the Sun’s energy and its effects on Earth and near-Earth space. Throughout the video, the wavelengths are presented in isolation or blended together with others, and the different colors represent various temperatures.

The images that have all the pretty loops and arches are extremely hot material. We would like to understand where all those arches come from. They are filled with things that are about 2 million degrees.

Project scientist for SDO Dean Pesnell said in an interview with Yahoo News

By observing the Sun with extreme ultraviolet light, ultraviolet light and visible light, scientists can better understand why the Sun’s magnetic fields are always moving, and how material passes through the corona (the plasma surrounding the Sun).

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