Why It's Impossible to Return From the Sun

The sunlight on your skin left the Sun about eight minutes ago. But the energy it carries was made in the Sun's core long before that: according to NASA, it takes about 170,000 years to work its way out to the surface. Tonight's slow documentary travels into our star: down to the fifteen-million-degree core, up through its boiling surface and million-degree corona, out along the solar wind, and through the storms that reach Earth. We fly beside Parker Solar Probe, the fastest object ever built, listen to the Sun ring like a bell, and follow it billions of years into its future, using real NASA visualizations and telescope images. In this journey: ⋆ How the Sun was born from a cold, dark cloud ⋆ Inside the core: four million tons of matter turned into energy every second ⋆ The ghostly neutrinos that pass through your body from the Sun's heart ⋆ Why light needs about 170,000 years to escape ⋆ The boiling surface, seen by the largest solar telescope on Earth ⋆ Sunspots, the eleven-year cycle and the solar maximum of 2024 ⋆ Why the corona is hundreds of times hotter than the surface ⋆ The solar wind, and the scientist who was told it could not exist ⋆ The Carrington Event, the 1989 blackout and the great auroras of May 2024 ⋆ Parker Solar Probe: touching the Sun at 692,000 km/h ⋆ How the Sun rings like a bell, and what that reveals inside it ⋆ Our 230-million-year journey around the galaxy, and the Sun's long future You don't need to follow every word. Let it play, and drift toward the light at your own pace. Chapters: 0:00 Eight minutes ago 5:42 An ordinary star 11:25 The core 17:51 The long walk of light 23:46 The boiling surface 30:00 Sunspots and the solar cycle 35:32 Solar maximum 40:53 The corona mystery 46:59 The wind that never stops 53:32 Flares and eruptions 58:40 When the storms reach Earth 1:05:06 Touching the Sun 1:11:23 Watching every second 1:17:42 A star that rings like a bell 1:23:37 Our journey around the galaxy 1:29:09 The Sun's long future Sources: https://science.nasa.gov/sun/facts/ https://science.nasa.gov/sun/ https://science.nasa.gov/science-rese... https://science.nasa.gov/mission/park... https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/parker... https://www.esa.int/Science_Explorati... https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/ https://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/about/k-1... https://science.nasa.gov/earth/earth-... https://nso.edu/inouye-solar-telescop... https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/phy... https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/phy... https://science.nasa.gov/exoplanets/r... Animations: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, svs.gsfc.nasa.gov pages 4026, 4038, 4246, 4776, 4854, 4907, 5286, 5293, 5344, 5407, 12729, 13505, 14036, 14572, 14892, 14950, 20233, 20299, 20306, 20310, 20344, 20406, 31375 Images (NASA Photojournal, NASA Image and Video Library; others as credited): NASA (JSC): iss072e030147 NASA and the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA: PIA04227 NASA, ESA, and D. Jewitt (UCLA): GSFC_20171208_Archive_e001339 NASA/Chris Williams: iss074e0480485 NASA/DLR/USRA/DSI/FORCAST Team: PIA15420 NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/Conroy et. al. 2021: PIA24571 NASA/ESA/JPL-Caltech/IRAM: PIA13959 NASA/GSFC/SDO: PIA19680 NASA/GSFC/Solar Dynamics Observatory: PIA11237, PIA18140, PIA18143, PIA21650, PIA21768, PIA21783, PIA21836, PIA21873, PIA22184, PIA22198, PIA22199, PIA22244, PIA22537, PIA22645, PIA22661, PIA26681 NASA/Hubble Heritage Team: GSFC_20171208_Archive_e001465 NASA/JPL: PIA00481 NASA/JPL-Caltech: PIA03653, PIA11968, PIA17255 NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA: PIA13001 NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA, the Hubble Heritage Team STScI/AURA: PIA14442 NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC: PIA07902 NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA: PIA13115, PIA13448, PIA14040 Narration uses an AI-generated voice. Facts are researched and checked against NASA sources. Use of NASA imagery does not imply NASA endorsement.