Suck it, Icarus.
An ongoing NASA exhibit called Solarium lets you get close to our star without the threat of being burned.
One full minute of the exhibition's footage is about 10 hours of work threaded together using imagery from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
NASA / Via nasa.gov
Every image has eight times the resolution of a high-definition TV.
The SDO takes a picture almost once every second, allowing scientists to monitor our star's majestic solar flares, which can result in massive bursts of X-rays and UV rays. Eruptions swirl and sometimes even escape the sun's gravity altogether, according to NASA.
NASA / Via nasa.gov
But each photo doesn't arrive in full color.
The observatory actually records the images using binary code (or that series of zeros and ones you may have seen). Then a computer program converts that into black-and-white photos, which are then colorized to be as realistic as possible.
NASA / Via nasa.gov
It's a bit reminiscent of the 2007 film Sunshine starring Cillian Murphy, sans [spoiler alert] the psychotic stranded astronaut.
The exhibition is permanently on display at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and temporarily as part of Astronomical exhibit at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona until May 17.
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