Live NASA Imagery
The Sun Now
Live images of the Sun right now, direct from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) — all 15 real imaging channels, from visible-light sunspots to million-degree flaring plasma invisible to the human eye.
Official source: sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/dataUnderstanding Real-Time NASA SDO Wavelengths
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) uses specialized instrumentation to capture distinct wavelengths of light, allowing scientists to monitor different layers of the solar atmosphere simultaneously. The AIA 211 Å channel, for example, highlights hotter, magnetically active regions and can reveal coronal holes — dark, open-field gaps where fast solar wind escapes — while the AIA 131 Å and 94 Å channels are tuned to the extreme temperatures generated during active solar flares, some exceeding 10 million degrees. Tracking these live images provides real, useful advance context for oncoming geomagnetic activity on Earth, alongside this site's live Kp index and solar wind data.
AIA — Atmospheric Imaging Assembly
Images the Sun in 9 extreme-ultraviolet and ultraviolet wavelengths, each tuned to a different temperature — together they reveal everything from the quiet corona to the hottest flaring plasma.
AIA 171 Å
~0.9 million KThe quiet corona — shows giant magnetic arcs called coronal loops when the Sun is calm.
AIA 193 Å
~1.5 million KA hotter layer of the corona, and also the much hotter material produced during a solar flare.
AIA 211 Å
~1.9 million KHotter, magnetically active regions of the corona — useful for spotting active regions before they flare.
AIA 304 Å
~50,000 KLight from the chromosphere and transition region — shows prominences and filaments arcing off the Sun's edge.
AIA 335 Å
~2.5 million KActive region corona — highlights the hot, tangled magnetic fields above sunspot groups.
AIA 131 Å
~10 million K (flaring)Flaring regions of the Sun — tuned to catch the most energetic, hottest plasma during a solar flare.
AIA 94 Å
~7.2 million KExtremely hot flaring plasma — one of AIA's hottest-temperature channels, best for tracking active flares.
AIA 1600 Å
The upper photosphere and transition region — often shows bright flare ribbons during eruptions.
AIA 1700 Å
The Sun's visible surface and the chromosphere just above it, where temperature begins rising with altitude.
HMI — Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager
Measures the Sun's visible surface, magnetic field, and surface motion — this is where sunspots and active regions are tracked.
HMI Magnetogram
A map of the Sun's magnetic field — black and white regions show opposite magnetic polarity. This is where sunspots and active regions are born.
HMI Magnetogram (Colorized)
The same magnetic field map as the standard magnetogram, colorized to make polarity boundaries easier to read at a glance.
HMI Intensitygram (Colored)
A visible-light view of the Sun's surface, colorized — this is the closest to what the Sun would look like to the naked eye (never look at the real Sun directly).
HMI Intensitygram (Flattened)
A visible-light view with limb darkening corrected, making sunspots easier to see across the whole disk.
HMI Intensitygram
The raw visible-light view of the Sun's surface, showing sunspots as they naturally appear.
HMI Dopplergram
A map of surface motion — how fast different parts of the Sun's surface are moving toward or away from us, used to study the Sun's internal oscillations.
FAQ
What is the NASA SDO layout tracking?
This page displays a real-time imagery matrix from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. By tracking 15 distinct ultraviolet, extreme ultraviolet, and magnetic field channels, observers can identify active sunspot regions, flaring solar loops, and coronal holes — the source of fast solar wind streams that can spark aurora activity days later.
How often do these solar images update?
SDO transmits data continuously to a dedicated ground station. This page refreshes each image automatically every 5 minutes with a fresh cache-busting request, so you're seeing NASA's actual latest available imagery rather than a stale cached copy.
Why do the images use different colors?
The human eye can't naturally see extreme ultraviolet light. NASA assigns a false-color palette to each wavelength — for example gold tones for 171 Å — so scientists can visually tell apart plasma at very different temperatures and track magnetic structure across the Sun's surface at a glance.