NASA released stunning new images captured by their Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, a space telescope designed to study our sun.
First images of Sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory
NASA unveiled the first pictures and video taken by the SDO’s suite of instruments, which were designed to show the full range of the sun’s magnetic activity in unprecedented detail.
After staring at the sun for only a few weeks, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has already recorded the interplay between a small sunspot on the solar surface and disturbances high in the sun’s outer atmosphere.
Piet Martens, an MSU research professor who led MSU’s part of the project with David McKenzie, associate research professor, said the images are so clear that they will help scientists understand more than they’ve ever known about the sun.
The results are just the first samples from the $848 million mission, which will beam up to 150 million bits of data to Earth every second during its five-year lifetime.
NASA plans to have SDO in operation for the next five years. NASA said its impact on space science will likely be as great as the Hubble Telescope.