NASA | SOHO and TRACE Solar Discoveries

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On April 3, 2009, countries from around the world participated in the '100 Hours of Astronomy' webcast to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy. Produced to support the webcast, this movie highlights the discoveries of the SOHO and TRACE satellites, and features NASA solar scientists Alex Young and Dawn Meyers, describing how both satellites view the sun in their own unique way.

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[mercedesbenzformula]

SOHO along with STEREO I think is my favorite NASA project. I check these pretty much daily

[Anonymoose]

Amazing. This star has been here, waiting for us, since time began. We're just now *finally* beginning to understand it.

[Heikos]

Yes, I've seen it, the awesomeness of the sun is beautifully shown there.

This part reminded me of that scene indeed!

[solardutch]

Other than Hubble, SOHO has got to be the most important research satellite ever constructed. Great Video!

[HiAdrian]

The footage hints at the ridiculously powerful processes within the sun, you can almost feel it. Awesome video.

[Mathview]

Great overview of SOHO and TRACE and thanks for sharing images and video sequences. The plasma flux tube evolution that shows up in so many of these pictures are just amazing. MHD fans take note!

[CounterNerd]

Hardly haven't learned anything easier than this. Thanks for sharing info!

[willbraga]

And to think that the Sun is one the smallest stars in the Universe. Just imagine the millions of others that are millions of times bigger than it. The Universe is amazing and so is our Sun.

[Atoyota]

excellent display... helps me understand the formations of sunspots

[Abitibidoug]

I'm at a loss for words here, but must say you have some amazing pictures in this video.

[hekyah]

my favorite part is at 4:03. that picture looks really cool

[tamiatami]

interesting video!!!
Piergiorgio, grazie per la condivisione....

[radbot]

yes reminded me of that too. Awsome movie!

[kingpopaul]

WOW that's some solar burst, hell that's big

[JosipJovanov]

@best100s
u potpunosti se slazem sa tobom ;)

[caminanteplanetario]

what an amazing video... this is why I love science

[iNcrese]

it's not that the sun is bigger, it's just a bit more active. I believe it's a cycle. The amount of solarspots changes throughout this cycle. The more solar spots the less active the sun is.

[GUAlliance]

I the IST.. I need to go visit them :P

[dimas_music]

Yes it does, in 25.38 days around the equator. But because the whole sun is made out of plasma the rotation speeds are slightly variable.

[sscam]

The sun is 8 light minutes from the earth give or take, so it would take 8 minutes for the light to reach us from the sun. An astronomical unit (abbreviated as AU, au, a.u., or sometimes ua) is a unit of length roughly equal to the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun. It is approximately 150 million kilometres (93 million miles). The current best estimate of the value of the astronomical unit is 1.495 978 706 91(6) × 1011 m.[1][2]