This is What the Sun Looked Like for Every Day in 2020

By Andy Tomaswick - January 17, 2021 at 10:50 PM UTC | Solar Astronomy
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Have you ever seen the videos of people taking daily selfies of themselves over the course of years or even decades? Now the sun has started it's own series of pictures - with 366 complete pictures from the year 2020, captured by the European Space Agency's Proba-2 satellite.

There are a couple of interesting things to note in the pictures. The first and most obvious is the fact that the satellite experienced two partial solar eclipses, on June 21st and December 14th. In the pictures, that phenomena makes the sun look like the Cookie Monster got a hold of it for a day.

SWAP isn't only good for taking progression pics. Here's a sample of some work it did in trying to understand the solar poles.Credit: ESA / Royal Observatory of Belgium

Proba-2 isn’t the only satellite taking these pictures of the sun though.  It’s successor and technological cousin, Solar Orbiter, has a camera known as the Solar Orbiter Extreme Ultraviolet Imager.  It was just launched in 2020, so it wasn’t able to contribute to this stunning series of images from Proba-2, but it will sure be able to in the near future.

Uncropped title image.Credit: ESA / Royal Observatory of Belgium

Learn More:ESA - The Sun in 2020UT - Great View!  January 4 Solar Eclipse As Seen From SpaceUT - Two ESA Satellites Launch SuccessfullyUT - Satellite Captures Solar Eclipse from Space

Feature Image Credit - 366 images of the sun by the Proba-2 Orbiter. Credit ESA / Royal Observatory of Belgium

Andy Tomaswick

Andy Tomaswick

Andy has been interested in space exploration ever since reading Pale Blue Dot in middle school. An engineer by training, he likes to focus on the practical challenges of space exploration, whether that's getting rid of perchlorates on Mars or making ultra-smooth mirrors to capture ever clearer data. When not writing or engineering things he can be found entertaining his wife, four children, six cats, and two dogs, or running in circles to stay in shape.