Prepare to be blown away.
Launched on February 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 to occur in our lifetimes – the transit of Venus across the face of the sun. This rare event takes place in pairs eight years apart that are separated from each other by 105 or 121 years. The last Venus transit was in 2004 and the next one will not occur until 2117.
These are some absolutely stunning images of the transit…
Related articles
- NASA’s amazing HD Venus transit clip proves your insignificance (video) (venturebeat.com)
- NASA – SDO’s Ultra-high Definition View of 2012 Venus Transit (jhaines6.wordpress.com)
- Transit of Venus 2012: Supercool Photos, Videos and Comments from Scientists (ibtimes.com)
- Photos: Transit of Venus: Best Pictures (abcnews.go.com)
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