ESA made a video from the 366 images of the Sun made by ESA’s Proba-2 satellite in 2020.
This satellite is continuously monitoring the changing activity of the Sun. One image was selected to represent each day of the year (including leap day 29 February in 2020). Click here for an animated version. The images were taken by the satellite’s SWAP camera, which works at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths to capture the Sun’s hot turbulent atmosphere (the corona) at temperatures of about a million degrees Celsius.
2020 marked the start of a new solar activity cycle – cycle 25 – which lasts about 11 years on average. At the beginning of the year the Sun still showed low levels of activity, but at the end of the year it already showed signs of waking up.
Proba-2 has already supported Solar Orbiter during the mission’s preparation, as technology heritage has passed from the satellite’s SWAP imager to the Solar Orbiter Extreme Ultraviolet Imager. Proba-2 will continue observing the Sun and supporting scientific campaigns on Solar Orbiter and other missions in the coming years.