Many images of the sun and Earth are available in real time, as they are collected by instruments around the world and in space. Click on the pictures below for more information. If an image does not show up it could be that the particular instrument is not functioning today, or (for ground based instruments) that the sky is cloudy.		An Aurora captured in X-Ray by the PIXIE instrument onboard the POLAR spacecraft.
Note that these images may be rotated with respect to one another, so be careful if you are comparing them. If you'd like to compare several solar images taken in different wavelengths, try our solar filter java applet (note that the data in the solar filter applet are not current).

Solar Images
White light image of the sun, courtesy the Big Bear Solar Observatory.	The solar corona, courtesy of the LASCO coronagraph onboard the SOHO spacecraft.
Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT) full-field images from the Hiraiso Solar Terrestrial Research Center / CRL (Japan)	H-alpha image of the sun, courtesy the Big Bear Solar Observatory.
The sun in extreme ultraviolet, from the EIT instrument onboard the SOHO spacecraft.
Earth Auroral Images
An auroral image from the Visible Imaging System (VIS) on board the NASA Polar spacecraft.	An x-ray image of the aurora, taken by the Polar Ionospheric X-ray Imaging Experiment (PIXIE) instrument on board the NASA Polar spacecraft.
Current Northern auroral position from the Space Environment Center (SEC) using the NOAA POES satellite.	Current Southern auroral position from the Space Environment Center (SEC) using the NOAA POES satellite.

For additional current data, visit

• The Solar Data Analysis Center (SDAC)
• The Solar, Heliospheric and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE)
• The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)