Happy Launchiversary SDO! NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory lifted off aboard an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral on Feb. 11, 2010, and has been observing our home star in high-definition ever since. SDO has provided us with unprecedented views of the Sun’s ever-changing atmosphere and data on the space weather it creates over the course of its prime mission and, now in an extended mission, will hopefully continue to do so for many years to come.

The video above is a compilation of images SDO acquired with its Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument during 2015, made into a single time-lapse video. Each frame is 2 hours of real time and clearly shows the Sun’s constant magnetic activity and movement of its 25-day-long rotation.

Short blank gaps and shifts in movement are due to SDO going offline occasionally for recalibration and repositioning itself in Earth orbit (and sometimes the Moon and Earth even get in the way briefly!) At 2:50 a solar physicist from Goddard Space Flight Center describes some of the features seen in the video, so be sure to watch the whole thing. (You can find an even higher-resolution version here.)

Learn more about SDO and see its most recent images here.

Credit: NASA/GSFC