Solar Dynamics Observatory

While millions of people who couldn't normally see the aurora took in the recent color-filled spectacle in the night sky, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was looking straight at the sun to catch the action. The fiery footage is well worth a watch.

NASA has released a time-lapse video of our Sun that condenses 10 full years of solar observations into a 61 minute movie. The shots were taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, which has been keeping vigil over our parent star for a decade.

For the human eye, staring straight into the sun is a daunting (and unwise) task. For the ALMA telescope, doing so is a walk in the park, as evidenced by a series of just-released photos. Included in the images is a close-up of a sun spot that's twice the size of our planet.

While you might think the sun has pretty much just one weather pattern – blistering and violent with a chance of radiation poisoning – it can actually be quite varied. One of the lesser known weather phenomena on the sun's surface are coronal holes, a video of which was just released by NASA.

NASA has released a stunning time-lapse video of our Sun constructed from images collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) ​over the course of its sixth year in space. The Ultra-HD quality video was recorded in the extreme ultraviolet spectrum.

NASA has released a half hour video of our Sun in breathtaking 4K detail, created from images captured by the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

NASA has provided a fascinating snapshot of the Sun with a time-lapse video that squeezes three years of solar activity into three minutes of footage.