NASA to Open New Digital Art Installation – Solarium
NASA Digital Art Installation – Solarium
NASA will open a digital art installation called Solarium on Feb. 11 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s Visitor Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Solarium immerses the viewer directly in imagery from the sun’s dynamic and explosive atmosphere. The footage runs from the floor to ceiling. Giant loops of solar material swell up over the sun’s surface, and eruptions of material five, 10 and 50 times the size of Earth explode out into space.
The opening of Solarium coincides with the fifth anniversary of the launch of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO. Solarium uses data from SDO, which has kept a constant watch on the sun since Feb. 11, 2010.
NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
This data is publicly available and used by scientists to trace how material courses through layers of the solar atmosphere, called the corona, sometimes catalyzing eruptions that can travel toward Earth and affect our orbiting spacecraft, power grids and other technology.
SDO is the first mission of NASA’s Living with a Star Program. The program’s goal is to develop the scientific understanding necessary to address those aspects of the sun-Earth system that directly affect our lives and society.
Photo courtesy: NASA
