NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory uses thin aluminum filters to observe extreme ultraviolet light from the Sun. Over time, some of these filters became cloudy, reducing transmission and complicating measurements.

The NIST story explains the mechanism: water on the filter surface and ultraviolet light drive aluminum-oxide growth, making the filters thicker and less transparent.

I made a short explanatory animation that moves from the full spacecraft to the filter surface and then down to the ion-scale mechanism. The goal was to make the degradation process feel physical without losing the instrument context.

For the spacecraft shots, I started from a NASA SDO model, cleaned up and simplified the geometry, then reworked materials and textures for the final animation.