Get smart curated videos delivered to your inbox.   SUBSCRIBE
The Kid Should See This

Watch a time-lapse sunset through a solar telescope

Watch more with these video collections:

Seeing the sun set can already be a breathtaking experience, but observing the sun with a solar telescope reveals incredible details — such as sunspots and solar filaments — that we could never safely see with our naked eye. Full screen HD the video above, captured by Sweden-based astrophotographer Göran Strand. He writes:

Yesterday I went out to shoot a sunset I’ve planned since last summer. This time of the year, the Sun passes right behind a big radar tower if you stand at the Swedish National Biathlon Arena in Östersund. The radar tower is located about 10 km away from the arena in a small village called Ås. I shoot the movie using my solar telescope to capture the structures on the Sun. The timing was perfect and the Sun looked really nice since it was full of sunspots and big filaments.

spotted sun setting behind the hill
Let’s move even closer. Courtesy of NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), we can continue to witness the incredible power of our closest star. Recorded on May 9, 2014, this coronal mass ejection was the first giant solar eruption recorded by IRIS:

In the archives: more videos about solar flares, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory: Year 4 and How Do We Know How Old the Sun Is?

This Webby award-winning video collection exists to help teachers, librarians, and families spark kid wonder and curiosity. TKSST features smarter, more meaningful content than what's usually served up by YouTube's algorithms, and amplifies the creators who make that content.

Curated, kid-friendly, independently-published. Support this mission by becoming a sustaining member today.

🌈 Watch these videos next...

Venus crossing in front of the sun, via NASA SDO

Rion Nakaya

Underwater time lapse can show the secret life of a coral reef

Rion Nakaya

Traditional Swedish Woodworking (1923)

Rion Nakaya

Time lapse sprouting wheat grass

Rion Nakaya

Time lapse night view from the International Space Station

Rion Nakaya

Thousands of reindeer take an epic journey across Lapland

Rion Nakaya

The Space Shuttle Atlantis: The Last Roll-Out

Rion Nakaya

The entire sun in STEREO – Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory

Rion Nakaya

The decomposition of a watermelon over 35 days

Rion Nakaya