The Sun 360: March - November 2012, 304 A.

A Carrington projection map of the entire Sun as seen by STEREO and SDO in Extreme Ultraviolet Light at wavelength of 304 Angstroms (30.4 nm). The movie is formatted to be shown on spherical projection units such as Magic Planet. This map shows the chromosphere, the layer of the Sun's atmosphere above the photosphere (the solar "surface") and below the corona. Most of the material seen here is between 60,000 and 80,000 degrees Kelvin (110,000-140,000 F). The maps are every 12 hours from March to November 2012.

The bright areas are active regions - areas of strong magnetic field which show dark sunspots when viewed in regular visible light. These regions are where solar flares occur. Notice the active regions form two bands which change over time as new regions pop up to the solar surface and then spread and dissipate over time. Other features include long thin filaments which sometimes disappear as they erupt out into the solar system as part of the giant clouds known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

• euvisdo_maps_carrington_304_111411_h264.mov