NASA and USPS Unveil Glimmering Stamps To Celebrate 10 Years of Sun Observation

NASA Sun Stamps

To kick off the summer, USPS has teamed up with NASA to release a glimmering collection of stamps that celebrate 10 years worth of images of the Sun. Printed with a foil treatment, the 10 designs are derived from some of the Sun’s most alluring phenomena captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, to illustrate different sun chronicles such as plasma blasts, sunspots, and solar flares.

NASA launched a spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in February 2010 as a way to monitor the Sun’s activity in geosynchronous orbit above Earth. Each image is colorized by NASA and does not represent the actual colors of the sun as perceived by human eyesight. The striking colors go in accordance with the different wavelengths that reveal or highlight specific features of the Sun’s activity.

SDO has provided hundreds of millions of images of the Sun with more than a decade of observation. “What SDO has done is given us the ecology of the Sun,” said Dr. Dean Pesnell, SDO project scientist at NASA Goddard. “We see events big, we see events small, and now we start to see how each size affects the others. It’s giving us the big picture, one detail at a time.”

Two of the stamps feature images of coronal holes, one highlights sunspots, two depict plasma blasts, two show coronal loops, one is a view of an active sun that emphasizes its magnetic fields, and the last two show different views of a solar flare.

These stamps are now available for purchase in sheets of 20 from USPS.

USPS and NASA have collaborated on 10 stamp designs celebrating some of the Sun's most alluring phenomena captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Coronal Hole Sun Stamp

Solar Fire Sun Stamp

Plasma Blast Sun Stamp

Sunspots of the Sun Stamp

Coronal Loops Sun Stamp

The Sun Plasma Blast Stamp

Active Sun Stamp

The Sun Solar Flare Stamp

The Sun Coronal Loops Stamp

The Sun Coronal Hole Stamp

Watch the video below to dive deeper into the colorization process.

See “A Decade of the Sun.”

NASA: Website | Facebook | Instagram
h/t: [Colossal]

All images via NASA.

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Claudicet Pena

Claudicet Pena is a Contributing Writer and Project Manager for My Modern Met. In 2005, she attended the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University where she studied Business and Marketing. Later in her career, she found herself teaching yoga and meditation full-time, earning the title “Best Yoga Teacher 2016” by Best Self Atlanta Magazine. Claudicet is currently based in Boston, combining her passions for art, writing, and business development. As a creative at heart, she devotes time to her own outlets of yoga, meditation, writing, drawing, and painting. Claudicet also shares her love of arts & culture with her daughter as they explore the city and travel abroad. Explore along with them on Instagram: @claudipena.
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