NASA has several orbiting spacecraft trained to study the Sun during it’s 11-year cycle. Recently the team of astronomers and scientists behind the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) released a video showing a full year of activity on the Sun. You’ll want to crank this one up to 4K if you can, though it still looks spectacular in 1080p.
It’s interesting to note that the bulk of the solar activity is along the rotational plane, which is the plane of the entire solar system. Also notice that as the days pass the Sun doesn’t rotate completely every day. This is because it actually spins once every 24.5 days.
What is fascinating about this video is that you can clearly see the changes over time with sunspots and filaments releasing chaotic swirls of plasma out into space. The Sun is not a bright orb, but a turbulent, swirling, magnetic ball of plasma. Too cool.
great blog I no longer read The Sun newspaper here