On Thursday morning NASA launched a new $850 million mission designed to help us learn more about the sun than has previously been possible. The Solar Dynamics Observatory will spend the next five years taking measurements of the sun, in some cases capturing images with 10 times better resolution than HD television.
You can watch video of the launch here. And remember: these aren’t CGI, Hollywood-style special effects. This is a real rocket, launched into space at 2,300 miles per hour. Amazing.
One of the important outcomes that is expected to come from this mission is the ability to predict solar weather disturbances, which include things like solar flares. We may not realize it, but variations in the sun’s weather can cause major problems here on Earth, like disrupting power grids and knocking out satellite communications, which we use for things like cell phones and cable television.
As Dean Pesnell, an SDO project scientist for NASA, puts it, “Our sun affects our lives more and more as we depend more and more on technology.”
Speaking of technology… there’s even an iPhone application that allows you to track the progress of the SDO mission and get a constant stream of 3-D views of the sun. You can download it for free right here. Enjoy!