NASA's New Solarium Shows What It's Like to Get Up Close to the Sun
NASA's new solarium gives visitors an immersive experience with our fiery star.
— -- NASA is inviting the public to step inside a new, immersive exhibit that shows off the sights and sounds of the fiery star.
On permanent exhibition beginning Tuesday at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the solarium blends the sights and sounds of the sun to create a one-of-a-kind experience -- minus those incinerating temperatures.
Pulling from the resources of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, the installation has incredible imagery that includes erupting solar flares, the yellow-orange swirls of the solar atmosphere and unexpected explosions of solar matter that can be up to 50 times larger than earth.
Genna Duberstein, lead producer on the project, told ABC News it took four years to bring the idea to life. She said stepping inside has a "time-bending, mind-numbing property to it."
"It kind of makes you have to forget about your phone and your to-do list and you just stop and observe and it really brings you into the moment," she said. "You see flickers of light and dark shapes and you lose all sense of time."
The Solar Dynamics Observatory captures the incredible action of the sun using the ones and zeroes of binary code, according to NASA. The code is then processed into black and white photos, which are later colorized by scientists to provide a more realistic look at the solar activity.