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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 6, 2012 at 12:36am

That's fucking great. I suppose this is as good a spot as any to throw this up, as it obviously relates.

Solar Tornado on the Surface of the Sun captured by Satellites over a 30 hour period..... Fucking amazing...

In the video, cooler plasma material appears as darker spots on a bright background. The SDO spacecraft recorded the video in the extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum, giving the movie an eerie yellow hue.

NASA released the new SDO video to mark the second anniversary of the spacecraft's mission, which launched on Feb. 11, 2010. The $850 million spacecraft is on a five-year mission to record high-definition videos of the sun to help astronomers better understand how changes in the sun's solar weather cycle can affect life on Earth.

The sun is currently in an active period of its 11-year weather cycle. The current cycle is known as Solar Cycle 24 and will peak in 2013.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 6, 2012 at 9:07am

That was a great video. I liked the one they had on there about Saturn's rings around Earth as well.

It makes you feel even smaller and less significant when you start comparing the size of the Sun and then other Suns. :-)

The size of the sun in comparison

It is the fire of life. It can be kind but it can get angry. But it never throws its weight around. It is the sun. And although it is 330,000 more massive than earth and contains 99.8% of the mass in our solar system, it is small in comparison with some other stars.

The sun never cease to amaze us with its theatrics, its lava flares dancing across its surface in a ballet of nuclear fusion, sometimes leaping millions of miles into the air. And although the sun is big, its intense heat and light makes it difficult to capture good images with normal instruments. So NASA scientists use an Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and an Atmospheric Imaging Assembly detector to view the ultra-violet (UV) and extreme ultra-violet lithography (EUV) wavelengths released by the sun. The resulting images are spectacular.

Full disk image of the sun as taken by NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory, which orbits 22,300 miles above earth.

Earth in comparison to the sun

Earth’s distance from the sun varies between 91.4 million miles – in January – and 94.4 million miles – in July. The average distance of 92,955,887.6 miles (149, 597, 870.7 kilometers) is called 1 astronomical unit (AU), a measurement that is used to report distances to other planets and stars as well. In short, it’s not a weekend drive.

NASA puts the size of earth to the sun in perspective like this: Suppose the radius of Earth were the width of an ordinary paper clip. The radius of the sun would be roughly the height of a desk, and the sun would be about 100 paces from earth.

Earth size in comparison to the sun and other planets:

(Hey, we’re small but we’re beautiful!)

The size of the sun in comparison

Our sun is one of billions in the entire universe. It also is fairly small in comparison with other big stars. In fact, our sun is classified as a G2 dwarf star. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is twice as massive as the sun and 25 times more luminous. And Sirius is dwarfed by Pollux, which is eight times the radius of the sun. And Pollux is dwarfed by Arcturus, which is almost 26 times the size of the sun.

It’s a big, big universe

But there are bigger stars yet. When compared to Antares, our handsome sun is a mere pixel on a map. And Antares is not even the biggest star. That title is thought to belong to a star called VY Canus Majoris. It is about 2,000 times the size of the sun, or more than twice the size of Antares.

Sun in comparison to Antares:

Note that it VY Canus Majoris is the biggest in size but not mass. The currently known most massive star is thought to be WR 102ka – known as Peony Nebula Star – at about 175 times the mass of the sun.

How big is the universe?

The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe calculated the age of the known universe at 13.7 billion years old, based on its radius of 13.7 billion light years. And it is growing bigger every day, at a speed of 71 km/s/Mpc. The size of the whole universe is estimated to be 78 billion light years. If you start traveling today at 60 miles per hour (100km/h) you’ll get to the end of your first coffee stop, the end of one light year, in nine trillion years. Then you just keep going for another 77.999 999 billion light years. Or you could stay here, look after our beautiful planet… and enjoy the sun.

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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 6, 2012 at 10:10am

That first video is an oldie but a goodie. Great stuff.

Hadn't seen the second one before, but with Morgan Freeman narrating, it reminds me that "Through the Wormhole" comes back with new episodes this very week on the Science Channel here in the states. FABULOUS fucking show. 

Great choices all around. I can watch stuff like this all day long. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Chig Champa on March 6, 2012 at 5:17pm

Tyson is good, but nobody did it better than Sagan;

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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 6, 2012 at 5:53pm

Just finished my re-watch of Cosmos last weekend on Netflix..... We miss ya Carl...

How fucking fabulous would it be to still have him around talking about the discoveries he wasn't fortunate enough to be here for with that infectious enthusiasm he had for everything?

Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 6, 2012 at 6:02pm

Excellent video. Neil is great. Got a double dose of him last week, because he was on both the Daily show and Bill Maher, which was fun. He had some great zingers on Maher.

Did you watch his show on PBS? The man is an incredible intellect, and I enjoy hearing him talk about almost anything, but they had some odd choices for subject matter on it. I was surprisingly bored by some of the episodes. You have to go a long way to make Neil boring, but PBS somehow managed to do it in this case. I hope it gets a second season so they can maybe re-tool the show a bit more to his strengths.

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Permalink Reply by Lab Rat on March 9, 2012 at 5:58am

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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 9, 2012 at 9:08am

Ha. :-)

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Permalink Reply by Scrump Bolymeux on March 9, 2012 at 11:45pm

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Permalink Reply by Mr. E on March 12, 2012 at 11:05am

Nice link.

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Permalink Reply by Zulzon on March 12, 2012 at 12:42pm

Thanks for the link man.

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Permalink Reply by Joe on March 12, 2012 at 2:26pm

This is my new background.

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