NASA SDO's Tantalizing First Look at the Sun

NASA’s new Solar Dynamics Observatory has released some stunning footage and imagery of the Sun and its recent eruptive prominence. Here’s a small taste:

More at NASA SDO’s First Light page.

SDO: The Solar Dynamics Observatory is the first mission to be launched for NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program, a program designed to understand the causes of solar variability and its impacts on Earth. SDO is designed to help us understand the Sun’s influence on Earth and Near-Earth space by studying the solar atmosphere on small scales of space and time and in many wavelengths simultaneously.