staring at our Sun (pocket edition) (2014)

NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spacecraft to geosynchronous orbit (around Earth) in 2010. the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) project on board SDO photographs our Sun every 15 minutes (24/7/365) using four multi-wavelength telescopic cameras (and NASA posts the images at http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/aiahmi/). NASA’s photos record extreme ultraviolet light, well beyond our visible spectrum.

this zine presents 36 sequential days of NASA’s photos of our Sun (showing one full rotation of our Sun - which takes 27 days at the equator and 36 days at the poles):
*generally one per day, near noon Pacific Standard Time;
**plus 8 images from the day of the lunar transit (near the end);
***across 7 NASA AIA filters showing extreme ultraviolet light, in the colorspace NASA chose for each filter;
****with temperature ranges in the bright spots from 60,000K to 15,000,000K.

we also see a lunar transit near the end, where our Moon crosses in front of our Sun across 8 photographs (which show a Moon sized-and-shaped black hole blocking part of the Sun’s face).

cmyk offset print on recycled matte paper, 88 pages (8.5 x 4.5” pages), staple bound, with custom sleeve, edition of 1069

“without the Sun’s intense energy, there would be no life on Earth.” -NASA