Solar Eclipses and Space Weather Explained

The sun is crucial for life on our planet. It never ceases to amaze us with events such as eclipses or space weather. And who watches the sun for changes? NOAA. In this video we take a deep dive into what is called Space Weather – what it is, what causes it, and why we keep an eye on the sun.

Our star is a gigantic ball of extremely heated gas that constantly releases energy and mass and periodically produces explosions on its surface, which affect the environment in space around our planet and causes space weather. There are several phenomena occurring on the sun that have a chance to affect our planet in different ways, both good and bad. From creating amazing green and purple lights in the night sky – Auroras – to generating problems with telecommunications, astronaut safety, and our power grid.

The Space Weather Prediction Center, one of nine National Centers for Environmental Prediction at NOAA, keeps an eye on the sun 24/7. If an event on the sun threatens to impact our planet, NOAA is responsible for issuing communicating alerts, just like the National Weather Service does with hurricanes or tornadoes. Alongside NASA, NOAA studies the sun to better predict when these events might happen in order to improve our early warning capabilities.

For more information about space weather visit NOAA’s SPWC webpage. You can also find amazing sun imagery and visualization at NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.

Some images, videos, and music were licensed from Getty Images. Several visualizations were provided by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. The video was edited using a free open source video editing software Shotcut. Python code was used to make rotating videos from static videos or stills and to process sun imagery (*.fits) to images (*.png).