NASA has released a free 3-D app for the iPhone that allows users to have a live view of the sun. The app allows users to orbit around the sun, zoom into active solar flares, and even receive alerts when something interesting happens. For example, recently users were alerted to a comet approaching the sun. The app played a movie of the comet’s last hours as it was destroyed by the sun.
The views of the sun are not in the visible light spectrum. Instead the views are in the extreme ultraviolet portion of the spectrum, which explains why the sun looks green in the image to the right. It is this spectrum that gives a person the best views of solar flares and sunspots. Recently a strong solar flare erupted on the far side of the sun. While it was not viewable on earth, it was viewable by those with this app.
Planned improvements to the application include higher-resolution images and multiple extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. From the news article:
Realtime images used to construct the 3-dimensional sphere are beamed to Earth by the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), a pair of spacecraft with a combined view of 87% of the solar surface. STEREO-A is stationed over the western side of the sun, while STEREO-B is stationed over the east. Together, they rarely miss a thing.
To get the app, head on over to 3-D Sun.
