[Music throughout] Announcer: T-minus 10, 9, 8
7, 6, 5, 4, go for main engine start,
3, 2, 1, 0,
and ignition and liftoff of the Atlas V with the
Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Narrator: SDO, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched on February 11th,
2010 and has been watching the Sun for the last 10 years,
providing key insights into what drives the Sun’s activity, including the
space weather that our astronauts and spacecraft must travel through.
During that time, it has witnessed incredible solar events and enabled scientists
to make many groundbreaking discoveries about the Sun. Here are
some of the highlights. In 2011, scientists spotted
a special kind of ripple on the Sun called Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, which look
like curling ocean waves. They are also present on the Earth,
but aren’t the size of the United States. On June 7th,
2011, SDO spotted a huge eruption of plasma on the Sun.
This was the first time such a large event had been captured in such fine
detail. Two months later, on August 9th, SDO
observed one of the most powerful flares of this solar cycle. Flares are
intense bursts of radiation caused by the release of magnetic energy.
SDO records in many different wavelengths, including one tuned
to some of the hottest parts of the Sun, allowing it to see the full extent of
these solar explosions. On December 15th,
Comet Lovejoy seemed to survive a close pass of the Sun, but broke apart
a few days later. In 2012, scientists used
SDO's wealth of information to create a new, and impressionistic,
way to further understand temperature change on the Sun.
On June 5th, Venus transited the face of the Sun, an event
so rare it won’t happen again until 2117.
In July, SDO’s high resolution and rapid imaging
cadence captured a beautiful solar loop, where hot plasma condensed
out of the atmosphere, or corona, and “stuck” to the strong magnetic
fields pushing through the surface. On August 31st,
the Sun had a huge and beautiful prominence eruption that instantly became
iconic. Early in 2013,
SDO imagery helped astronomers see the early formation of
a coronal mass ejection, or CME, and the reconnection events that
result in solar flares. CMEs release giant plumes of
material from the Sun that speed across the solar system. They
can interact with Earth’s magnetic environment and are hazardous to spacecraft and
astronauts. The Sun was very active in
September and October, first forming what almost looked like a canyon and then crackling
with flares and CMEs for a week.
Comet ISON made its way around the Sun on November 28th, Thanksgiving Day,
but unlike Lovejoy, it broke apart immediately.
The Sun remained active in 2014, with many beautiful prominence eruptions
and bright flares. SDO worked in tandem with the new
satellite, IRIS, to help study these flashes.
On December 19th, just in time for the holidays, the Sun
put on its final light show of the year.
The Sun has a cycle of activity, lasting an average of 11 years,
called the solar cycle. 2015 marked the beginning
of the decrease in this cycle with fewer flares and eruptions.
On May 10th, 2016,
SDO saw another transit, this time from Mercury. It looks much
smaller because not only is the planet smaller than Venus, it’s also farther
away from Earth, where SDO is orbiting at 22,000 miles
above the surface in a geosynchronous orbit.
The solar cycle had its last gasp of activity in 2017.
In July, a large sunspot made its way across the face
as the Sun rotated. Then in September, a final burst
of flare activity, including the strongest flares since 2001,
exploded off the Sun. Since this activity,
the Sun has been pretty quiet, sinking into the lowest point of the
solar activity cycle. Scientists were still able to go back through
old SDO data and discover a new kind of explosion, called forced
magnetic reconnection. On November 11th, 2019,
Mercury transited across the Sun again, this time with a much more
sedate backdrop. SDO scientists
are aiming to continue watching the Sun for at least another three years,
and the spacecraft could even last another decade. During
this time it should witness the rise of the next solar cycle and an increase in
solar activity. Without a doubt, SDO’s last
ten years changed how we looked at, and thought about, our nearest star.
Who knows what the next ten might bring?
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