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SALT LAKE CITY — In celebration of the 100 millionth image of the sun captured by a NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory instrument, scientists shared 12 of their all-time favorites.
The images were all captured by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, which sends 57,600 detailed images to the observatory each day, according to NASA. It was launched on Feb. 11, 2010 and features four telescopes that cycle through 10 wavelengths to capture eight images of the sun every 12 seconds.
NASA wrote that the images “show the dance of how solar material sways and sometimes erupts in the solar atmosphere, the corona.” Many of SDO’s images have gone viral, like the sun’s so-called jack-o’-lantern face captured in October.
The images in this photo gallery were selected by SDO project scientist Dean Pesnell and AIA principal investigator Karel Schrijver.
