Amazing NASA Sun Photos Outshine Ultra HDTVs

Miriam Kramer
January 19, 2013
Amazing NASA Sun Photos Outshine Ultra HDTVs




"Such detailed pictures show features on the sun that are as small as 200 miles across, helping researchers observe such things as what causes giant eruptions on the sun known as coronal mass ejections (CME) that can travel toward Earth and interfere with our satellites," they explained.

While features 200 miles (322 kilometers) across sound large, the sun itself is 864,938 miles (1.3 million km) in diameter.

NASA's SDO mission launched in February 2010 to record unprecedented views of the sun, solar flares and other space weather events. As of December 2012, the spacecraft had captured more than 100 million images of the sun, about the equivalent of eight hours of TV programming a day for four months, mission managers said.

The SDO spacecraft is one of several space observatories keeping a constant watch on the sun. NASA's twin Stereo spacecraft and the NASA/ESA SOHO spacecraft also provide daily views of the Earth's closest star.

