Does COSMOS show the Sun live?

No. The Sun’s position follows the selected date inside the recorded 2020–2040 Horizons archive, but no solar imagery is integrated at all. The word "NOW" in COSMOS selects the present epoch within that archive; it is not a live feed from any solar observatory.

Why is the Sun drawn without sunspots or granulation?

Because no validated, timestamped solar product has been selected yet. COSMOS shows a true-scale emissive sphere instead of a substitute texture, so the picture cannot be mistaken for a measurement it is not.

body · True-scale educational sphere

The Sun: measured size, position and the imagery COSMOS does not yet show

COSMOS places the Sun from an interpolated JPL Horizons state vector and draws it at its published mean radius. No solar imagery is integrated: the disk is a labelled educational proxy, and the SDO layer contracts stay pending until a timestamped product passes validation.

Explore Sun in 3D

Measured facts

Classification: G-type main-sequence star
Mean radius: 695,700 kmPublished mean radius stored as renderer geometry.
Mean diameter: 1,391,400 km
Mean radius in Earth radii: 109.20
Appearance: Temporary educational representation
Observation epoch: No observational appearance integrated

What you are looking at

The Sun is self-luminous, so it is lit by itself rather than by a selected-date Sun direction. That is the only body in COSMOS with this lighting mode, and the renderer exposes it as a separate case rather than applying a planetary shader.

A solar disk is wavelength-specific. An HMI 6173 Å continuum image and an AIA 171 Å extreme-ultraviolet image are different physical measurements, and any colour in the EUV product is scientific false colour. COSMOS therefore refuses to show a solar texture until the layer, timestamp and wavelength are all recorded.

The integrated appearance is a plain emissive sphere at the published mean radius. Nothing about it claims a photosphere observation, granulation, sunspots or a live view.

Distance, scale and light time

Distances here are computed from the shipped JPL Horizons state archive, sampled once per day across its declared coverage (2020-01-01 00:00 TDB through 2040-01-01 00:00 TDB). The Sun’s distance from Earth changes slightly through the year because Earth’s orbit is elliptical.

Distance from Earth: 1.010 AU · 151,090,743 kmAt the recorded snapshot epoch 2026-08-29 00:00 TDB, one-way light time 8.40 minutes.

Delivery and camera limits

COSMOS stops the camera at 1.08 mean radii for Sun. This body has no observational imagery integrated yet, so only an educational-geometry limit applies.

Appearance status: Temporary educational representation
Renderer provider id: sun-visual-v1
Declared resolution: Pending selected product and instrument sampling validation
Closest permitted approach: 1.08 mean radiiEducational geometry limit only; no observational surface imagery is integrated for this body yet.
Rotation model: Approximate static display orientation — Not yet a selected-date body-fixed solutionNo external orientation kernel is used for this body.
Geometry: mean-radius-sphereMean-radius sphere; no ellipsoid or terrain displacement yet

Provenance

Appearance provenance is carried by the provider at runtime, not added by the page: an active appearance layer is registered.

Category: observational
Provider: NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory
Project / mission: Solar Dynamics Observatory
Dataset: SDO HMI/AIA solar disk layer foundation
Version: foundation-v1; concrete timestamped products pending
Licence: NASA SDO data policy; retain instrument and wavelength credit
Attribution: NASA/SDO/HMI and NASA/SDO/AIA
Source checked: 2026-09-06

Limitations COSMOS discloses

Appearance incomplete; no observational surface or atmosphere claimed
No solar imagery, magnetogram or EUV layer is integrated; both foundation layers remain pending-product-validation.
A solar observation plane and timestamp are required before any solar texture is shown, because a disk without an epoch is not reproducible.
Position is interpolated inside 2020-01-01 00:00 TDB through 2040-01-01 00:00 TDB; requesting an epoch outside that window is rejected instead of extrapolated.

Questions this page answers

Does COSMOS show the Sun live?: No. The Sun’s position follows the selected date inside the recorded 2020–2040 Horizons archive, but no solar imagery is integrated at all. The word "NOW" in COSMOS selects the present epoch within that archive; it is not a live feed from any solar observatory.
Why is the Sun drawn without sunspots or granulation?: Because no validated, timestamped solar product has been selected yet. COSMOS shows a true-scale emissive sphere instead of a substitute texture, so the picture cannot be mistaken for a measurement it is not.

Datasets behind this page

JPL Horizons planetary state archive (2020–2040)NASA/JPL Horizons · derived-scientific-model · One discrete geometric state vector per object at JD 2461281.5 TDB
SDO HMI/AIA solar disk layer foundationNASA Solar Dynamics Observatory · observational · Pending selected product and instrument sampling validation

Content updated 2026-09-26. Every value on this page is computed from the shipped datasets; where a source publishes no value, the page says so instead of estimating one.