Incredible NASA video compresses 3 years of the Sun into 3 minutes

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been in orbit for over three years now, keeping its eye on the Sun for us, so that scientists can study it and we can be alerted to potential solar flares.

Now, as a treat, the folks at NASA released a video to show us what they've been seeing over those three years, as the Sun has been gradually increasing its activity towards the solar maximum this year.

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NASA points out a few highlights you can watch for, such as an X6.9 solar flare — the largest so far this solar cycle — which erupts near the right-hand edge of the Sun at around 1:11, Comet Lovejoy passing by at 1:28, and the transit of Venus at 1:51.

However, since I found those events really hard to see in that quick three-minute video, I tracked down better views of them, so that you can have a closer look...

The August 9th, 2011 X6.9 solar flare:

Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy on December 15th, 2011:

Venus transits across the Sun in 2012:

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According to NASA, the SDO takes 7,200 images of the Sun every day, over different wavelengths of light that let them see different parts of the Sun's surface and atmosphere, and highlight different features, like solar flares and the corona. These images are taken every 12 seconds, which you can see on NASA's SDO website.

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