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The Sun: The Star That Feeds Us
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The Sun: The Star That Feeds Us is a 3D virtual gallery on MyGallery3D, a walkable online exhibition of 16 works. Step inside and explore it in your browser: no app, no headset.
Welcome to a 3D virtual gallery you can walk through in your browser, exploring the star that makes life on Earth possible.
The Sun accounts for 99.86% of all mass in the Solar System. Every second, its core fuses 600 billion kilograms of hydrogen into helium, converting four billion kilograms of matter into pure energy. Yet the power density at its centre is roughly the same as inside a compost heap. It will burn for another five billion years before swelling into a red giant and swallowing its inner worlds.
The Sun's core reaches 15.7 million kelvin and a density 150 times that of liquid water. Yet its peak power output is only about 276.5 watts per cubic metre, comparable to a compost pile. The sheer volume of the core compensates: 99% of the Sun's power comes from the innermost 24% of its radius. Each proton takes on average nine billion years to fuse with another.
The Sun is the most nearly perfect sphere ever measured in nature, with an oblateness of just 8 parts per million. It spins faster at its equator, about 25.6 days per rotation, than at its poles, about 33.5 days. Formed 4.6 billion years ago from a collapsing molecular cloud, it once rotated up to ten times faster, gradually slowed by its own magnetic field dragging against the solar wind.
Solar flares release bursts of X-ray and ultraviolet radiation that reach Earth at the speed of light. This energy is absorbed by the daylight ionosphere, temporarily increasing ionization and disrupting shortwave radio and GPS signals. During solar maxima, several flares can erupt per day. The most powerful, X-class flares, can disable aviation navigation systems for minutes to days.
![SDO Spots Extra Energy in the Sun's Corona [detail], from The Sun: The Star That Feeds Us](https://auth.mygallery3d.com/storage/v1/object/public/gallery-snapshots/the-sun-the-star-that-feeds-us/6a4c10cd5fc3802ba69a112f7b72271244d69a06.webp)
These jets, known as spicules, were captured in an SDO image on April 25, 2010. Combined with the energy from ripples in the magnetic field, they may contain enough energy to power the solar wind that streams from the sun toward Earth at 1.5 million miles per hour.
NASA · GSFC · 2017-12-08 · Solar spicule on Wikipedia
A dark coronal hole that was facing towards Earth for several days spewed streams of solar wind in our direction (Sept. 18-21, 2016). A coronal hole is a magnetically open region. The magnetic fields have opened up allowing solar wind, comprised of charged particles, to stream into space.
Gusts of solar wind can generate beautiful aurora when they reach Earth. The video clip shows the sun in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light.
NASA · JPL · 2016-09-21 · Coronal hole on Wikipedia
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket stands ready to boost NASA's Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study the Sun following rollback of the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37.
Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
Workers prepare to lift a nose cone to top out one of a pair of replica space shuttle solid rocket boosters at the entry of the space shuttle Atlantis attraction under construction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Workers will use cranes to place the nose cones atop each of the model boosters. The building at right houses the actual shuttle Atlantis.
NASA · KSC · 2013-05-01 · Space Shuttle Atlantis on Wikipedia
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket stands ready to boost NASA's Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study the Sun following rollback of the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37.
Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
STEREO satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the Sun. The structure of the corona shows well in this image.
NASA · JPL · 2007-04-27
STEREO satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the Sun. The structure of the corona shows well in this image.
NASA · JPL · 2007-04-27
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study to Sun is seen as the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37 rolls back on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
These jets, known as spicules, were captured in an SDO image on April 25, 2010. Combined with the energy from ripples in the magnetic field, they may contain enough energy to power the solar wind that streams from the sun toward Earth at 1.5 million miles per hour.
NASA · GSFC · 2017-12-08 · Solar spicule on Wikipedia
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket stands ready to boost NASA's Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study the Sun following rollback of the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37.
Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
NASA Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope aboard ESA’s SOHO spacecraft took this image of a huge, handle-shaped prominence in 1999. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended in the Sun hot, thin corona.
NASA · JPL · 2001-02-17 · Solar prominence on Wikipedia
STEREO satellites have provided the first three-dimensional images of the Sun. The structure of the corona shows well in this image. 3D glasses are necessary to view this image.
NASA · JPL · 2007-04-27 · Anaglyph 3D on Wikipedia
On Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37 rolls away from the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket waiting to boost NASA's Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study the Sun.
Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
The solar corona, as photographed from the Apollo 15 spacecraft about one minute prior to sunrise on July 31, 1971, is seen just beyond the lunar horizon. The bright object on the opposite of the frame is the planet Mercury. The bright star near the frame center is Regulus, and the lesser stars form the head of the constellation Leo. Mercury is approximately 28 degrees from the center of the sun.
The solar coronal streamers, therefore, appear to extend about eight degrees from the sun's center. This solar corona photograph was the second in a series of seven. Three such series were obtained by astronaut Alfred M. Worden, command module pilot, during the solo part of his lunar orbital flight. They represent man's first view of this part of the sun's light.
NASA · JSC · 1971-07-31 · Apollo 15 on Wikipedia
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket that will launch NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on a mission to study to Sun is seen as the Mobile Service Tower gantry at Space Launch Complex 37 rolls back on Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona. The probe will rely on measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and the Sun-Earth connection.
NASA · KSC · 2018-08-10 · Parker Solar Probe on Wikipedia
A pair of replica space shuttle solid rocket boosters stand at the entry of the space shuttle Atlantis attraction under construction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Workers will use cranes to place the nose cones atop each of the model boosters. The building at right houses the actual shuttle Atlantis.
NASA · KSC · 2013-05-01 · Space Shuttle Atlantis on Wikipedia
