This 4K Time-Lapse of the Sun Features the Largest Sunspot in the Past 22 Years

James Tyrwhitt-Drake recently combined over 17,000 images captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and Helioviewer.org to create a time-lapse showing the largest sun spot of the past two solar cycles — that’s roughly 22 years!

The eight-minute video begins on October 14th, 2014 and ends on October 30th, 2014. Displaying roughly 52.5 minutes of real-time per minute of video, the 17,000 4K resolution images used added up to approximately 72GB worth of data.

The sunspot shown is officially referred to as AR 2191, and over the course of its activity it has produced six X-class and four M-class solar flares that were actually visible from Earth. Above is a closer cropped version of the video that better shows the sunspot in action.

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