NASA has racked up 100 million sun photos that will help scientists better understand our parent star.
"In the almost five years since its launch on Feb. 11, 2010, SDO [Solar Dynamics Observatory] has provided images of the sun to help scientists better understand how the roiling corona [an aura of plasma that surrounds the sun] gets to temperatures some 1,000 times hotter than the sun's surface, what causes giant eruptions such as solar flares, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move," the space exploration agency
said in a statement on Monday.
It also released the 100 millionth photo on Twitter to celebrate.
The instrument aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory providing detailed photos of the sun is known as the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, or AIA. The sophisticated imaging system employs four telescopes working simultaneously to capture the sun on 10 different wavelengths every 12 seconds.
"Between the AIA and two other instruments on board, the Helioseismic Magnetic Imager and the Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment, SDO sends down a whopping 1.5 terabytes of data a day," NASA wrote.
"AIA is responsible for about half of that. Every day it provides 57,600 detailed images of the sun that show the dance of how solar material sways and sometimes erupts in the solar atmosphere, the corona."
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