Sun: GOES SUVI (171 Å) - Real-time

The sun, which is roughly 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the Earth, is an incredibly active star. In order to observe it, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) telescopes called the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) have been placed on NOAA’s geostationary satellites. While the primary purpose of geostationary satellites is to monitor weather on Earth, SUVI allows scientists to also monitor the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, or corona. EUV photons are created in the million-degree plasma of the corona and are not visible from the ground, due to the absorption of the Earth’s atmosphere, which is why the SUVI telescopes had to be mounted on geostationary satellites.

Observations of solar EUV emission aids in the early detection of solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and other phenomena that impact the geospace environment. SUVI can view the sun in multiple wavelengths. This dataset shows the sun in the 171 angstrom wavelength, which shows plasma at a temperature of 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit. At this wavelength, several key features of the outer atmosphere of the sun can be seen, including active regions that show up as bright, complex regions that can be the source of coronal mass ejections, and coronal holes that show up as dark spots where the sun’s magnetic field is open, allowing high speed solar wind to stream out. Magnetic structures like coronal loops, the arcs coming off the sun, can also be seen.

The early warning given when SUVI observes a solar eruption comes at least 15 hours before the associated coronal mass ejection arrives at Earth. This allows space weather forecasters to issue the appropriate watches, warnings, and alerts for geomagnetic storms.

Because SUVI is only able to monitor the side of the sun that is facing it, there is no imagery available for the far side of the sun. However, over the course of 28 days, SUVI is able to observe the whole surface of the sun as it completes a full rotation. In this dataset, images from two days prior are available in 4 minute increments and 14 days worth of images.

Note: At times the visualizations may appear degraded or unavailable due to satellite instrument issues, scheduled instrument maintenance, or upstream data-pipeline interruptions on the data provider’s side.

The image frames in this animation are generated from FITS data files obtained from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI). Each file contains a solar disk observation from the GOES SUVI instrument. The files are converted to image frames using Python. Because only one hemisphere of the Sun is observed, the disk is replicated onto the opposite side of the sphere. A border line marks the division between the observed and replicated hemispheres.

• Time frame: Real-time
• Frequency: 1 frame every 4 minutes
• Range: 14 days
• Variable: 171 Å Wavelength