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NASA unveils 100-millionth picture of the sun

Jessica Durando
USA TODAY

100-millionth image of the sun taken Jan. 19.

A National Aeronautics and Space Administration instrument aboard a sun-viewing spacecraft has captured its 100-millionth image of the sun.

The instrument, on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, is the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and uses four telescopes. The photo was taken Jan.19, according to NASA.

The telescopes work parallel to capture eight images of the sun and cycle through 10 different wavelengths every 12 seconds, according to NASA.

In the nearly five years since its start in 2010, Solar Dynamics Observatory has captured images of the sun "to help scientists better understand how the roiling corona gets to temperatures some 1,000 times hotter than the sun's surface, what causes giant eruptions such as solar flares, and why the sun's magnetic fields are constantly on the move," NASA says.


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