A Northrop T-38C supersonic jet trainer captured mid-flight in this image of supersonic shock waves. Nasa’s patent-pending Background-Oriented Schlieren using Celestial Objects (BOSCO) technique shows the distortions caused by the aerodynamic flow of the shockwave passing between the camera and the background.

According to Armstrong principal investigator Michael Hill, CaKEBOS was a proof of concept test to see how effectively the Sun could be used for background oriented schlieren photography. It’s a way of photographing air density gradients, like shockwaves in the air, by using something like the sun or a speckled desert as a background.

This schlieren image dramatically displays the shock wave of a supersonic jet flying over the Mojave Desert. However, the latest evolution of capturing such images backlit by celestial objects has produced completely gorgeous works of scientific art. By using a calcium-K (CaK) optical filter, the granulated texture of the sun’s chromosphere is enough that engineers can capture the distorted shockwave as jets fly across the entire disc of the Sunday.

Researchers used NASA-developed image processing software to remove the desert background, then combined and averaged multiple frames to produce a clear picture of the shock waves. The schlieren imaging technique’s basics are more than a century old, but most of the times, the need for complex optics and bright light sources has kept its utility in aerodynamics research restricted to only scale models in wind tunnels.

A carefully timed shot was taken by NASA scientists from the ground as aircraft passed the edge of the sun or moon at supersonic speeds. The team estimates that a similar system could be built for as little as $3,000 (£2,000).

The space agency hopes to use its findings to make supersonic flight quieter, and less disruptive for those of us on the ground. “We would like to try to use the BOSCO system on things other than aircraft”.

Hall muses, “We could potentially perform schlieren photography on anything we could get between our camera and the sun”.