Posted on 04/22/2010 5:39:49 PM PDT by Steelfish
The Sun As You've Never Seen It: Nasa Reveals Stunning Footage From New Satellite [Pics in URL]
By CLAIRE BATES and DAVID DERBYSHIRE 22nd April 2010
Forget Iceland's volcano. If you want to see a really big eruption, you need to head to the Sun. This astonishing image - captured by a new Nasa space telescope - shows a ferocious solar flare looping out the Sun with the power of 100 hydrogen bombs. The ring of fire, heated to tens of millions of degrees, stretches out tens of thousands of miles - and is so big it could contain more than 100 Earths.
It is just one of the spectacular images from a new satellite which it says could give fresh insight into how the Sun works. The pictures were taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun. Scroll down for video report
Ring of fire: Known as a 'prominence eruption', this is a loop of gas heated to an extremely high temperature. Twisted magnetic fields on the Sun's surface cause the gas to be shaped like this. This image was captured by the satellite on March 30
The clarity of the SDO images means that it will feed back to Nasa on Earth more comprehensive science data than any other solar observing spacecraft. Every day it sends out 1.5 terabytes of data, equal to 500,000 songs on an MP3 player.
'These initial images show a dynamic sun that I had never seen in more than 40 years of solar research,' said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at Nasa. 'SDO will change our understanding of the Sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
That’s beautiful.
Hey looks like the place Ted Kennedy is at! Obamas father is in the pits of this place!
Looks hot.
Cue Johnny Cash!
Makes cow farts and SUVs seem a bit insignificant in the grand scheme, doncha think?
Thanks! Better than the original!
Wow! Thank you for posting!
I am going to use this article in our weekly homeschool science reader. Our kids will love it.
Do you both know that you, JoeProBono, and you Steelfish signed on within 3 days of each other..?
BTW: great thread and photo of the sun storm, thanks!
Cool photo... but I have a question... doesn’t it take oxygen to create fire? If so, where does the oxygen come from to keep the sun burning? Also, what is the sun made of that has enough fuel to keep it burning for so long? Me thinks GOD has something to do with this as it can be the only explanation. My fires burn out here in my backyard if I dont keep adding fuel (wood).... just asking...
Geez, I’ve been hoping the Dems would go to this place for years. I just thought it was called something else! lol
I remember these same questions from science class. Unfortuately I don’t recall what the answers were. ;-)
OMG!!! Look how hot Global Warming has made the Sun!!!!!!!!
Nuclear fusion. Helium and Hydrogen. Lots of it.
The “fire” is hydrogen nuclear fusion in a thin layer around the core of the sun, not normal fire of oxidation.
Correct, and where Ted Kennedy and his brothers and BHO Sr. are is REAL fire ;-)
And we’re getting this from a UK newspaper instead of FedGov because...?
In all the hysterical bitching about “alternative” energy, why has nuclear fusion disappeared from the equation?
Another crisis, quickly tax IT !!
It’s said that 100 earths could fit in that flame circle ...
Oh ... WOW ..... so hopefully the distance is further, right?
Thank You for posting this.
> This is an incoherent statement. The power is obviously far larger than 100X any nuclear weapon ever detonated on earth.
Yeah, I hit that and immediately discounted any other quasi-scientific statements in the article. Geez. 100 MILLION hydrogen bombs, per second, isn't even close. Even a zeroth-order sanity check would have flagged that journalistic puke. Wikipedia says:
"...the sun fuses 430–600 million tons of hydrogen each second....
equivalent to 9.15 × 10^10 megatons of TNT per second..."
> However, hydrogen bombs are indefinitely scalable. Such power is theoretically possible in one bomb. The sun itself is a single hydrogen bomb, far larger than this isolated eruption. So the reference to multiples of indefinite power is meaningless.
Interesting perspective.
Just damn! That is awesome. Any folks who think we puny humans have ANY control over our climate just need to take a look at THAT picture!
Big old sun ping!!
:)
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