The image was already astonishing, but this video could make your head spin. Watching this titanic ball of fire from every angle is a pretty neat way to realise how lucky we are to be alive.
NASA calls this solar eruption the “magnificent CME”, and it was recorded on August 31, 2012. The video was created by NASA’s Scott Wiessinger, the NASA Goddard Space Center’s Helio and Astrophysics Video Producer. He said he started with 4K ultra high-definition square frames and cropped them in the final video. He also included views from the SOHO and STEREO satellites.
“You can download the 4096×4096 ProRes Quicktime file and look at any part of the sun in mind-numbing detail,” Wiessinger says. You can open it with Apple Motion or Adobe After Effects. Get it here.