NASA releases stunning 10-year time-lapse of the Sun

NASA has released a stunning 10-year time-lapse video of the Sun, bringing a decade of activity into a one-hour film. 

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been watching the Sun non-stop for over a full decade. While orbiting around the Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun, NASA said in a statement while releasing the time-lapse footage.

According to NASA, the Sun's magnetic field goes through a cycle, called the solar cycle. Every 11 years or so, the Sun's magnetic field completely flips and its north and south poles switch places. 

"Compiling one photo every hour, the movie condenses a decade of the Sun into 61 minutes," wrote NASA while sharing the video. 

The custom music, titled “Solar Observer,” was composed by musician Lars Leonhard.

NASA also explained that the dark frames in the video are caused by Earth or the Moon eclipsing SDO as they pass between the spacecraft and the Sun. A longer blackout in 2016 was caused by a temporary issue with the AIA instrument that was successfully resolved after a week.

The time-lapse images are taken at the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 17.1 nanometres to capture the outer atmosphere, which is an extreme ultraviolet wavelength that shows the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer – the corona

Titled 'A Decade of Sun', the video was released on Wednesday.