Sky-watchers gathered across the country Tuesday to witness the planet Venus float across the face of the sun — but chances are they didn't see it like this.
The best seats in the house belonged to NASA, which captured images from their own high-tech spacecraft orbiting the sun. The Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the sun, and it provides images with a resolution eight times better than high-definition television, according to NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
The video shows in about three minutes, the 6 hour and 40 minute event. It's almost something out of a sci-fi movie: Tiny Venus passes by a massive, fiery, haunting orb. The images were constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum, making the sun appear in different colors: red, gold, magenta, and orange.
The event isn't expected to happen again in our lifetime. The last transit was in 2004 and the next won't happen until 2117.
Launched on Feb. 11, 2010 the SDO is on a five-year mission to examine the sun's atmosphere, magnetic field and also provide a better understanding of the role the sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate.
