100 Millionth Sun Image by NASA in January 2015

Summary: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured its 100 millionth sun image on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015, at 12:49 Eastern Standard Time.

100 millionth sun image on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL, Public Domain, via NASA

The sun has been posing for photos for NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) ever since the mission's launch Thursday, Feb. 11, 2010, by an Ares rocket from Cape Canaveral on east central Florida's Space Coast.

Developed at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, SDO is the first satellite under NASA's Living With a Star program. SDO is designed for five years of flight, though a longer lifespan is possible.

SDO traces an elliptical figure-8 orbit above the Earth at an altitude of about 22,000 miles (35,405.6 kilometers). With an inclination of 28.5 degrees, SDO homesteads at 102 degrees west longitude.

SDO is entrusted with demystifying the sun, as the source of energy, life and weather, by studying solar activities and by measuring such components as the solar core, corona, irradiance and magnetic field. Earthlings perceive solar irradiance, a form of electromagnetic radiation, as precious sunlight.

The sun constantly expresses change, especially by way of its dynamic surface where magnetic forces play tug-of-war and where energy outputs specialize in variability. Sunspots, which are linked to intensely strong magnetic fields, undergo an 11-year cycle that has assumed even more significance due to the 21st century's emphasis on technology. Sunspots are integral to solar flares and to coronal mass eruptions, which are disruptive to satellite-based technologies such as GPS communications.

Four specially built telescopes, known as the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), always face the sun. SDO downlinks data from its two onboard directional antennas to its dedicated ground station, located in White Sands Missile Range, in southwestern New Mexico. Every 12 seconds AIA's four parallel telescopes capture eight solar images. AIA's images cycle through 10 wavelengths, which represent seven Extreme Ultra Violet (EUV), one Ultra Violet (UV) and two visible bands. AIA captures 57,600 solar images every day. SDO's images have super-high display resolutions of 4096 x 4096 pixels.

Two other onboard instruments, the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment and the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager, collaborate with AIA in transmitting 1.5 terabytes (1,500,000,000,000 bytes) of data every day. AIA's contributions account for about 50 percent of the daily data stream.

On Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2015, at 12:49 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST), the sun posed for its 100 millionth image for the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The dynamic portrait features dark areas at the bottom and top that represent coronal holes, areas with less dense gas due to outflows of solar material away from the sun. The image, a mosaic from AIA's four telescopes, captures extreme ultraviolet light at a wavelength of 193 angstroms, the channel that visualizes the darkness of coronal holes as well as the hotness of solar flares.

From the earliest stunning solar images beamed down by AIA in March 2010 to AIA's landmark 100 millionth sun image in mid-January 2015, the sun never fails to enchant with its photogenic mysteries.

Fortunately, there is no limit for amount of time spent in admiring AIA's spectacular solar portraits. Earthlings may be discouraged from looking directly at the sun, but they may gaze to their heart's content at AIA's plentiful images.

full-disk multi-wavelength extreme ultraviolet image of sun on Tuesday, March 30, 2010: NASA/Goddard/SDO AIA Team, Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

100 millionth sun image on Monday, Jan. 19, 2015: NASA/SDO/AIA/LMSAL, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/sdo-telescope-collects-its-100-millionth-image/#.VMadPP7F8mO

full-disk multi-wavelength extreme ultraviolet image of sun on Tuesday, March 30, 2010: NASA/Goddard/SDO AIA Team, Public Domain, via NASA @ http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/news/first-light.html#.VMbBgP7F8mP

For further information:

Fox, Karen C. "Telescope on NASA's SDO Collects its 100-Millionth Image -- January 20, 2015."
Available @ https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/sdo-telescope-collects-its-100-millionth-image/#.VMadPP7F8mO