Solar Exhibits

Much of modern astronomy and astrophysics is publicly funded, with results freely available for anyone to use and appreciate. To share this knowledge in accessible ways, many scientists also use this research to promote public understanding. The “Dynamic Sun” video wall project from Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian researchers is one example. Installed at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC, the video wall uses data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which monitors the Sun and provides regularly updated images of its behavior. The “Dynamic Sun” exhibit provides a high-resolution view of the Sun from the previous day of SDO observations, movies of solar flares and other solar weather, and information about the Sun’s behavior. Similar exhibits have been built for the Museum of Boulder, Colorado; the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City; North Carolina State University’s Hunt Library; the Harvard Art Museum’s Lightbox Gallery in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Telus World of Science in Edmonton, Canada; and the Frost Museum of Science in Miami, Florida.

Credit: CfA

The Sun, Up Close

The “Dynamic Sun” exhibit at the Air & Space Museum is built from six 50-inch video monitors, making a total display 6 feet tall by 7 feet wide. This gives a grander view of the Sun than high-definition televisions can provide, designed to awe and inform the viewer about our home star. By using real publicly-funded data from NASA spacecraft, the “Dynamic Sun” and similar exhibits add value to the scientific mission of SDO.

The images themselves are processed from data taken the previous day by SDO’s four Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) telescopes, which were partly designed and built by CfA scientists and engineers. Any recent solar flare or other visually dramatic events can be presented to the public very soon after it happens, with accurate scientific information about what these events mean in terms of solar activity.

The “Dynamic Sun” and other video wall projects for museums were developed by solar researchers at CfA with support from NASA’s “Living with a Star” outreach program and the Smithsonian Grand Challenges Consortia.