gallery - Sun-Earth connection

Movie of a fly past by a jet aircraft. The plane is travelling faster than the speed of sound, so it approaches silently, and you hear a sonic boom only after the plane passes the camera position.

Movie of the Earth being battered by the solar wind. The solar wind is approaching the Earth from the left hand side of the frame. The magnetic field (grey) in front of the Earth is squashed by the flow of the solar wind and the magnetic field behind the Earth extends out into space.

Animation of a CME occurring at the Sun and the effect it has when it reaches the Earth.

The aurora as seen from Earth. The different colours are produced by different elements in the Earth's atmosphere. The aurora are often said to look like curtains of colour, which dance silently across the sky.

Ultraviolet aurora around the Earth's north pole observed from space. The aurora is concentrated around the north and south poles in a circular pattern. Regions of the most intense aurora are shown in red.

SOHO-LASCO movie of a large halo CME. The snowstorm effect at the end of the movie is caused by energetic particles from the CME hitting the detectors in the LASCO instrument when they reach SOHO .

Movie of cables and transformers at an electricity generating station burning out.

Movie of astronauts performing a spacewalk.

Still Images