NASA | SDO's Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit

Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun. During its five-year mission, it will examine the sun's atmosphere, magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate.  SDO provides images with resolution 8 times better than high-definition television and returns more than a terabyte of data each day.

On June 5 2012, SDO collected images of the rarest predictable solar event--the transit of Venus across the face of the sun.  This event happens in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years.  The last transit was in 2004 and the next will not happen until 2117.

The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum.  The red colored sun is the 304 angstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored sun is 171 angstrom, the magenta sun is 1700 angstrom, and the orange sun is filtered visible light.  304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum.

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Follow the conversation online with #VenusTransit

[NASAGoddard]

Some have noticed that in one filter, Venus appears to be transparent as it crosses in front of the sun. This is actually an artifact of how that particular UV filter is built and the coincidental angle of the edge of the sun's disc compared to the camera's orientation. You'll notice it appears in one filters -- the gold/yellow view.

Part of the answer is that light can refract around the filter element used on SDO to show UV light.  SDO uses transits like this to actually help calibrate and correct for this issue. Because of the structure of the mesh supporting the metal foil filter, you see this refraction resulting in 45-degree lines. Another part of this is your brain looking for patterns. If you zoom way in you'll see the line dissolves into sort of a wide blur across the disc of Venus, not a line at all. But in motion, your brain puts it together with the line of the sun to make it seem more coherent.


You'll see a similar artifact in Hubble images where bright stars appear to have four points - this too is a refraction from the four struts that support the secondary mirror.

In this case, Venus crossed the edge of the sun where that boundary was nearly 45 degrees (compared to up and down in the camera's filter), making it look like there's a ghostly line. If you follow the planet through to where it exits the sun at 1:36 -- and the sun's edge is not 45 degrees -- you can look closely and see two 45 degree lines pass across the face of Venus. It's a fainter effect because the refraction lines are not lined up with and reinforcing each other.

[drumcircler]

Beautifully done! Thank you!
Remembering that the Sun is 67 million miles beyond the Venus silhouette that we are seeing, it's mind-boggling how big the sun is.

[blueone]

I'm so glad that I was able to see this happen. It was truly amazing to see and very humbling.

[vectoredthrust]

This video makes me tremble in fear and awe of the cosmos in a way that religions are supposed to make me

Nothing humbles you quite like the universe beyond our comfy planet

[marclambo]

i watched this happen through a telescope last week and by george it was astounding

[sb]

music name : Dramatic Intro from Stockmusic

[xiaoacid]

Thank god for the internet we get to see this!:D

[YourCritic]

That's probably one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.

[Fuuten]

Still one of the most moving piece of art on youtube. Continues to sent shivers through my body time after time.

[NinuRenee]

God i wish i had seen that in person, oh well, time to live to 115 to see the next one

[orleygonzalez]

Beatiful animation and details. Very impressive video quality

[enzoAKAevil]

Hmm, this video has received 155 dislikes so far and I'm wondering, why would anyone dislike this? This should be liked by everyone on this planet cuz it shows us a view of one of the many fascinating events that occur in our solar system.

[geolobree]

This video made me realize how hypnotic the sun is up close, with all the flares and such bursting away from it. I missed this event where I live, thanks so much for this SDO!

[vladz]

Only I noticed that venus is transparent?

[SolidLiquidSnake]

It's such an amazing coincidence that the orbit of Earth and Venus line up for this event. Spectacular. Sends shivers down your spine.

[abhrodeepsinha]

What makes me sad that for seeing another one I will not be there in this beautiful planet 💔

[mutatron]

The apparent transparency of Venus is an instrumental artefact from some of the SDO sensors. You'll notice this doesn't happen with the visible light sensors, but the ones for ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet have a delayed charge clearing response which leaves afterimages. These are the images you're seeing as Venus blocks out the light.

[DemoSure]

This short film is about the gosh darn prettiest thing ever that I have ever seen.

[jacksonf]

I saw this through my telescope with a filter! Awesome!!

[janasmangmailcom]

Yes. As it relates to video and/or still images, resolution refers to how many pixels per inch are used to make an image. It does not necessarily refer to the "quality" of an image. For example, if you take a 720x480 pixel resolution image (standard tv quality) and blow it up on a movie theater screen to a resolution of 7200x4800 you still only have standard tv quality video...it's just "bigger" ^_^