Seething Granules Around Sunspots

This time-lapse movie shows solar activity as recorded by the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite. It shows several flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) over a period of 20 days in fall of 2003. Several CMEs strike the SOHO satellite and make its detectors go crazy for awhile. The Sun drifts eastward along the ecliptic on the celestial sphere (due to the orbital motion of the Earth and SOHO), but the SOHO satellite always points at the Sun, so you see the background stars drifting westward (to the right) as the movie plays. The bright planet Mercury drifts eastward, goes behind the Sun, and emerges at the left due to its more rapid orbit around the Sun than Earth's orbit. The star Spica in the constellation Virgo is immediately below the Sun at the start of the movie, and toward the end the star Zubenelgenubi in the constellation Libra appears at the left, crosses above Mercury, and approaches the Sun.