Ever wondered what the Sun looks like up close? You're in luck: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) just released a spectacular one-hour-long time-lapse of the star. The video consists of the observations made by the Solar Dynamics Observatory in the past year. The latter is a prove that was launched into space by NASA on February 11, 2010 to help the agency study the Sun.
"Compiling one photo every hour, the movie condenses a decade of the Sun into 61 minutes," reads the official NASA press release about the effort. "The video shows the rise and fall in activity that occurs as part of the Sun's 11-year solar cycle and notable events, like transiting planets and eruptions."
Take a look at the footage:
The decade-long quest has resulted in 20 million gigabytes of data and 425 million high-resolution photos taken with a variety of instruments. To put it very simply, what you're seeing in the video is the Sun's outermost layer, corona, captured at a wavelength of 17.1 nanometers.
While staring at the Sun (via screen, of course), you'll likely notice a few dark frames: those, explains NASA, "are caused by Earth of the Moon eclipsing SDO as they pass between the spacecraft and the Sun." Back in 2016, there was also a longer blackout that was caused by instrumental mishaps.
Also pay attention to the soundtrack: "Solar Observer" is a custom-made track composed by musician Lars Leonhard. Have you ever seen anything cooler? We think not.
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