3D visualisation
The Earth exists in a bubble inside the Sun’s atmosphere, protected by its own electromagnetic field. The Sun’s turbulent atmosphere continuously flows around us and affects our planet.

See3D, at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, are collaborating with NASA’s STEREO solar mission to create 3D visualisations of disturbances in the Sun’s atmosphere, helping us to better understand how they affect the Earth. The engineers at See3D have developed 3D visualisation software that allows us to view the images transmitted by NASA’s STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft with only a 30 second delay.

Solar physics breakthrough
Dr Andy Breen, a member of the Aberystwyth Solar System Physics Research Group and a co-investigator on the mission’s SECCHI instrument (Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation), describes the mission’s importance to our understanding of the Sun: ‘Models based on two-dimensional study of the Sun don't really work, so for the first time we can start to see the structures in the shape they really are and that will give us a better chance of understanding them.’

The positioning of the two STEREO spacecraft orbiting the Sun is based on the same principle of depth perception that means our two eyes are offset. As Dr Breen explains, ‘One of the observatories is a little bit ahead of the other, but both are roughly the same distance from the Earth and the Sun. If you think of STEREO A as the right eye and B as the left eye, you've got two slightly different viewpoints.’

He describes how the images are viewed, ‘The 3D software works by feeding the slightly different images to each of your eyes. You wear goggles that switch from one image to the other. The left eye gets what the slower spacecraft sees and the right eye sees the faster spacecraft’s viewpoint, so you get an excellent 3D rendition.’

Solar storm prediction
Violent weather storms erupt in the Sun’s atmosphere, or corona, causing major disruption to satellite communication and power grids on the Earth. In two dimensions, scientists couldn’t clearly distinguish the structure or composition of these coronal mass eruptions.

Now, as Dr Breen explains, with the 3D visualisations generated by See3D, ‘we have a better chance of knowing what to look for if we are to predict a coronal disturbance. It should also tell us more about the complex structures of the solar atmosphere.’ The Sun may yet reveal its secrets.