Popping Off

Recent images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) are mesmerizing. The space observatory, launched on February 11th, 2010 from Cape Canaveral on an Atlas V-401 Rocket, is designed to monitor the Sun and how it influences space weather.

Seeing the sun like it's never been seen before:



AIA caught this beautiful prominence eruption only a few days after its doors were opened. The movie wobbles at the end because AIA's image stabilization system wasn't fully activated yet. Without the full stabilization capability, AIA would not be able to see the Sun at such high resolution. The actual wobble was extremely small - imagine a period in a newspaper seen from 100 meters away. Now move that period over a couple of words.