Watch the Sun Erupt in a Symphony of Solar Storms

(ambient instrumental)

[Narrator] See those dazzling golden arcs?

Those are the sun's magnetic fields,

traced in glowing arches of gas.

That activity is invisible to you and me,

but the Solar Dynamics Observatory,

a satellite hovering 22,000 miles above the Earth,

can see it by focusing in on extreme ultraviolet

wavelengths of light.

Those magnetically active areas

are the sources of energetic solar storms,

ones that erupt in flashes of light

and sometimes explosive ejections of matter.

The satellite isn't up there just to make pretty pictures,

it's there to help warn us

about those potentially dangerous explosions.

Occasionally, those solar belches

make it all the way to our planet,

interfering with GPS satellites

and other spacecraft in orbit,

including the one capturing these magnificent images.

One day, it may just record the solar storm

that leads to the observatory's demise.

(ambient instrumental)