14 DAY TRIAL // Astronomers operating the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) have just released this amazing new collage of images the telescope collected over the course of its mission. The product is stitched together from several photos of the Sun, which SDO collected at different wavelengths.
This is a screen capture from a newly released movie NASA scientists put together from data the SDO sent back to Earth. Some of the wavelengths in this picture, such as extreme ultraviolet radiations, are invisible to the human eye, so they were color-coded for easy observations.
The yellow image, for example, was collected at 5,800 Angstroms, as it was released by the surface of the Sun. The areas that generate this type of light are usually heated to a temperature of around 5,700 degrees Celsius, or 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
At the same time, the green image represents extremely hot solar flares, which can boast temperatures of up to 6.3 million degrees Celsius, or 11 million degrees Fahrenheit. SDO usually captures this type of extreme ultraviolet light at 94 Angstroms.
All these images are analyzed side-by-side with photos produced by other solar telescopes, so that scientists can gain more insight into how particles and heat move inside and outside the Sun.