This site requires JavaScript to be enabled in your browser. For instructions, click here

+ NASA Portal

SDO | Solar Dynamics Observatory

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.

SDO Movies

Launch Player to view more movies

Download movies

View Stepping Stones to SDO Series

NEWSROOM

Solar Dynamics Observatory Set For Shipment

GREENBELT, Md. - NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) soon will leave its home at Goddard Space Flight Center here and travel by truck to Cape Canaveral, Fla., where it is due to be orbited by an Atlas V rocket in November. The first mission in NASA's Living With A Star program, SDO will study the solar atmosphere from geosynchronous Earth orbit, taking images of the sun in multiple wavelengths at a resolution 10 times higher than high-definition TV.

SDO Spins Its Way Closer to Launch

Engineers at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., recently tested NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to determine its mass properties. SDO, the first mission of NASA's Living With a Star program, will study the sun's atmosphere in unprecedented detail to reveal how variations on the sun influence Earth and nearby space.

Deep Solar Minimum

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%).