1 00:02:49,720 --> 00:00:04,020 [Music] 2 00:02:49,740 --> 00:02:53,740 Narrator: Hello, I'm Nicholeen Viall, and I'm 3 00:02:53,760 --> 00:02:57,810 a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. 4 00:02:57,830 --> 00:03:01,850 What we're looking at right now is imagery from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. 5 00:03:01,870 --> 00:03:05,910 All of the dynamics and activty that's going on in the 6 00:03:05,930 --> 00:03:09,920 solar corona, the sun's atmosphere, which is what I study. 7 00:03:09,940 --> 00:03:13,960 What we're seeing here is a filament and it looks very 8 00:03:13,980 --> 00:03:18,040 dark and it looks like it's actually maybe even on the surface of the sun. 9 00:03:18,060 --> 00:03:22,060 But we can see as the sun rotates around that actually it's 10 00:03:22,080 --> 00:03:26,130 suspended high up in the atmosphere, away from the surface. When viewed from 11 00:03:26,150 --> 00:03:30,230 this angle, we call them prominences. This material is 12 00:03:30,250 --> 00:03:34,260 held up in the corona by twisted magnetic fields 13 00:03:34,280 --> 00:03:38,310 We're looking at the solar corona in extreme ultraviolet 14 00:03:38,330 --> 00:03:42,380 at 171 angstroms, which is a wavelength that our 15 00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:46,410 eyes cannot see. My favorite thing is all of these 16 00:03:46,430 --> 00:03:50,470 magnetic loops that you can see on the sun, how dynamic 17 00:03:50,490 --> 00:03:54,480 these magnetic loops are, just telling us how much change 18 00:03:54,500 --> 00:03:58,530 and evolution and activity there is on the sun at all scales. 19 00:03:58,550 --> 00:04:02,600 We can see on the northern part 20 00:04:02,620 --> 00:04:06,630 of the sun that a prominence rotates onto the disk of the sun 21 00:04:06,650 --> 00:04:10,680 and then it erupts in a giant coronal mass ejection, and 22 00:04:10,700 --> 00:04:14,760 all of that magnetic energy and all of the plasma that was trapped on those magnetic field 23 00:04:14,780 --> 00:04:18,780 lines launches out into the solar system. 24 00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:22,840 [Music] 25 00:04:22,860 --> 00:04:26,910 We're watching the sun rotate right now, this is one of the basic features of the sun, and 26 00:04:26,930 --> 00:04:30,940 it takes about a month for sun to rotate fully around and to see the 27 00:04:30,960 --> 00:04:34,990 same spot on the sun come back. We're seeing the sun 28 00:04:35,010 --> 00:04:39,070 rotate so quickly in this movie because it's timelapsed. 29 00:04:39,090 --> 00:04:43,100 [Music] 30 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:47,160 When the sun jumps around, that's actually 31 00:04:47,180 --> 00:04:51,180 the Solar Dynamics Observatory moving around and pointing 32 00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:55,220 different directions. Sometimes they have to point away from the sun so 33 00:04:55,240 --> 00:04:59,290 that they can calibrate their sensors, the cameras. 34 00:05:07,370 --> 00:05:03,320 [Music] 35 00:05:07,390 --> 00:05:11,440 When we see the frames go dark, that's eclipse 36 00:05:11,460 --> 00:05:15,480 season, so that's when the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which is orbiting the Earth, 37 00:05:15,500 --> 00:05:19,510 goes behind the Earth, and the Earth is between the Solar 38 00:05:19,530 --> 00:05:23,540 Dynamics Observatory and the sun, and so the Earth eclipses the images. 39 00:05:23,560 --> 00:05:27,620 These really bright spots, called 40 00:05:27,640 --> 00:05:31,660 active regions, have concentrated magnetic field and 41 00:05:31,680 --> 00:05:35,710 concentrated heating because of this extra magnetic field and the extra energy 42 00:05:35,730 --> 00:05:39,780 due to it. There are more active regions during solar maximum, 43 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:43,810 and fewer active regions during solar minimum. And often these active regions 44 00:05:43,830 --> 00:05:47,860 can lead to solar eruptions such as solar flares and 45 00:05:47,880 --> 00:05:51,930 coronal mass ejections. 46 00:05:51,950 --> 00:05:55,950 I study the coronal heating problem. That is why 47 00:05:55,970 --> 00:06:00,000 the solar corona so much hotter than the solar surface below it. 48 00:06:00,020 --> 00:06:04,080 And we know that it has to do with the magnetic field, which is 49 00:06:04,100 --> 00:06:08,110 constantly dynamic and evolving and injecting 50 00:06:08,130 --> 00:06:12,160 energy into the solar corona, and you can really get a sense of that when you 51 00:06:12,180 --> 00:06:16,170 watch these Solar Dynamics Observatory movies. 52 00:06:16,190 --> 00:06:20,200 [Music][Beeping]