Watch How NASA Turns Atmospheric Data From the Sun Into Abstract Art [Video]

I know, I know — I don’t get modern art, either. Luckily, the picture above isn’t a painting — it’s a visualization of the heating and cooling of plasma erupting from the sun in solar flares. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took images and gathered data on the plasma from a particularly active sunspot on six wavelengths over a twenty four hour span, then processed the data and recorded it’s hating and cooling history — one pixel at a time. The result is this amazing image and plenty of others like it, and you can check them all out — and learn more about how they’re made — in the video below.

(via Camilla Corona SDO)

Relevant to your interests

• The SDO sees all sorts of cool stuff — like Earth-sized tornados on the Sun
• Here are some amazing photographs of the Sun from a little farther back
• “Magnetic ropes” could be behind solar storms

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Ian Chant