The disambiguation page on Wikipedia for the term “Staring at the Sun” brings up three albums, nine songs, a novel, two films and an episode of Grey’s Anatomy that share the same title. The point, if there is one, is that despite being incredibly dangerous for the eyes, there’s something about looking directly at the sun that is pretty appealing to us on a philosophical, if not medical, level.
Fortunately, if you’ve exhausted all nine tracks (including the pretty dreadful Rooster one) and still aren’t satisfied, NASA has a safer way for you to get your fix. It comes in the form of a 30:24 video taken from the space agency’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Better yet, if you have a TV or monitor capable of watching it, it’s shot in glorious 4K resolution.
The telescope captured an image of the sun every 12 seconds in ten UV light wavelengths, with each one highlighting the various temperatures in a different hue. NASA claims it took “a team of media specialists” around ten hours to create a single minute of footage, but the results are definitely worth the effort (even if that is easy for me to say, given I didn’t personally have to spend 300 hours making the thing.)
Sit back, dim the lights, and let the sun illuminate your room for the next half an hour.
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