Welcome to the GOLD near-real-time data visualization tool and online interactive! This product is meant to provide the latest GOLD mission data, as soon as it is available to the public, in a meaningful and understandable manner.
In order to accomplish this goal, we have provided content that will illuminate the interaction between energy from the Sun, its impact on the Earth’s atmosphere, how it can affect our technologies and infrastructure, and how GOLD data informs us about these dynamic interactions.
Explore the GOLD instrument, its data, and what it all means.
GOLD observes the Sun's impact on Earth's uppermost atmosphere and improves our knowledge of space weather.
Our Sun is a source of electromagnetic energy that travels in waves across a broad spectrum from very long radio waves to very short gamma rays. The Sun's radiation bombards our atmosphere constantly. GOLD is designed to measure how the Sun's ultraviolet energy impacts the layers of the Earth's upper atmosphere.
GOLD explores a little-understood area which is close to home, but historically hard to observe: the interface between Earth and space. The thermosphere-ionosphere boundary is a dynamic area of near-Earth space that responds both to space weather above and weather in the atmosphere below.
GOLD studies the effects of terrestrial weather, namely atmospheric tides and waves propagating from below up through the thermosphere.
The 80-pound GOLD instrument takes digital images of light in ultraviolet wavelengths that are shorter than the human eye can observe. The images allow scientists to study the changes in the Earth's upper atmosphere and temperature over time, and across the Earth's surface.
View the latest GOLD mission data.
The GOLD Science Data Center gives access to all GOLD data.
Funding for this product was provided by NASA’s Explorer Program through contract NNG19PQ28C