The Sun is getting feisty … 

The star at the heart of our solar system has released three X-class solar flares (the most powerful class of flares) and their associated waves of charged particles in the past 24 hours. Luckily for us, they have been pointed away from Earth, as seen in the upper left of the video above from NASA.

NASA’s SDO and SOHO satellites captured the explosive magnetic arcs and bursts of plasma in stunning form in the video, which is full-screen worthy. By viewing the sun through different wavelength filters (the colored angstrom filters you see above) we can zoom in on activity happening at different temperatures and involving different ionized elements from hydrogen to iron. 

This happens as the sun ramps up for its predicted 11-year solar maximum later in 2013. Wear your sun(plasma)block!

Don’t you wish there was sound in space so you could hear these things? Sigh.

NASA’s Solar Fleet: Capturing the Awesome

Here’s a fantastic video showing a May 1, 2013 solar eruption from four different NASA solar observation spacecraft. You can appreciate the different perspectives and filters that are offered by SDO, SOHO and the STEREO twins, and why the big picture is always more informative than any alone.

(More at Bad Astronomy)

Source: Slate

Solar Palette If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation.  But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet. I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun. To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.
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Solar Palette If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation.  But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet. I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun. To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.
Zoom Info

Solar Palette

If you look at the Sun (which you shouldn’t, ever), you just see white light (for the second or so before your retinas are permanently scorched. That’s a mixture of all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that our eyes respond to, between 390 and 700 nanometers (or about 3,900 to 7,000 angstroms). And there is a lot we can learn about the Sun by viewing it in that range, from studying its undulating surface swirls to its rotation. 

But scientists at places like NASA can learn even more by extending their “eyes” beyond the visible.That’s what this new mosaic from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows us. It represents all of SDO’s detectable wavelengths and the ions and temperatures that those wavelengths represent. Viewing each of those can tell us a deeper, richer story of the solar physics at work in and on the fusion-powered energy source that feeds our planet.

I’ve captured the false colored hues that NASA scientists assign to each and put it in a digital palette. I can’t help but feel a bit amazed at not only the extreme temperatures at play (millions of Kelvin!) but also the extreme beauty. Our Sun is the best sun.

To dig into more detail about each wavelength and what it measures, check out this NASA article.

Solar Minimum; Solar Maximum Our Sun goes through an eleven year cycle of solar activity, and sunspots and flares will be reaching their peak next year. The NASA images above, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), are photographic proof. Increased solar activity can mean good things for aurora-watchers, but can be disruptive to our satellites and communications if some of that million-degree plasma gets ejected in our direction. That’s hot stuff. Random fact: The NASA SDO mission has a chicken named Camilla for a mascot, with a Twitter account. But shouldn’t it be called a “Clucker” account, since it’s a chicken? (via NASA)
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Solar Minimum; Solar Maximum

Our Sun goes through an eleven year cycle of solar activity, and sunspots and flares will be reaching their peak next year. The NASA images above, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), are photographic proof.

Increased solar activity can mean good things for aurora-watchers, but can be disruptive to our satellites and communications if some of that million-degree plasma gets ejected in our direction. That’s hot stuff.

Random fact: The NASA SDO mission has a chicken named Camilla for a mascot, with a Twitter account. But shouldn’t it be called a “Clucker” account, since it’s a chicken?

(via NASA)

Source: nasa.gov

Observing the Sun Like Never Before

Wow. You’ve never seen the Sun quite like this. NASA visualization artists have taken video images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and used a beautiful gradient filtering method to bring out details often lost to scientist’s eyes.

Magnetic turbulence, originating deep within our star, causes loops of energized solar material to erupt from the Sun’s surface. But they can be very hard to detect with the bright star behind them. So by processing these images through a gradient filter, the resulting video is both hauntingly beautiful while allowing obscure details of solar storms to be viewed by researchers.

Full screen, HD … you know the awesome drill.

(via io9)

Source: io9.com

Massive Filament Eruption on Sun On August 31, 2012 the Sun unleashed a powerful coronal mass ejection, in which it released high-energy material from the corona into space at 900 miles per second. It was not aimed at Earth, luckily, but still gave aurora-watchers quite a light show. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the event, as seen above. Those are four different light filters that can detect different chemical composition, from long (the bluer filters) to short (the orange and yellow). But disregarding all that technical stuff … holy cow this is an amazing picture. Support a cool space program and we can put cool spacecraft in orbit that will take cool pictures like this. (via NASA, here’s a bigger version)
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Massive Filament Eruption on Sun

On August 31, 2012 the Sun unleashed a powerful coronal mass ejection, in which it released high-energy material from the corona into space at 900 miles per second. It was not aimed at Earth, luckily, but still gave aurora-watchers quite a light show.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the event, as seen above. Those are four different light filters that can detect different chemical composition, from long (the bluer filters) to short (the orange and yellow).

But disregarding all that technical stuff … holy cow this is an amazing picture. Support a cool space program and we can put cool spacecraft in orbit that will take cool pictures like this.

(via NASA, here’s a bigger version)

Source: nasa.gov

Can you guys get enough time-lapse videos of the Transit of Venus?

I sure hope not, because here’s another one. Probably the best one. These views are courtesy of NASA’s amazing Solar Dynamics Observatory, the most advanced solar research spacecraft ever made.

Oh man, the colors … I know they are filters, but it’s like an ethereal lake of pure fire swallowing a tiny black pill.

(by NASAexplorer)

Source: youtube.com

Ever wondered what the view would be like when looking down the barrel of a stellar gun? Look no further, this is it. Looks like the sun’s a-rumblin’! The coronal firing squad hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, but that thing’s staring right at us. Oh, and right now the sunspot region is the size of Jupiter (image from NASA SDO): Should a powerful X-class event happen, well … hold on to your hats! Magneto-Storm!! Maybe it would be strong enough to run our iPhones off of aerial current, like the telegraph operators did in 1849 (<- must-read!)
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Ever wondered what the view would be like when looking down the barrel of a stellar gun? Look no further, this is it.

Looks like the sun’s a-rumblin’! The coronal firing squad hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, but that thing’s staring right at us. Oh, and right now the sunspot region is the size of Jupiter (image from NASA SDO):

Should a powerful X-class event happen, well … hold on to your hats! Magneto-Storm!! Maybe it would be strong enough to run our iPhones off of aerial current, like the telegraph operators did in 1849 (<- must-read!)

(via discoverynews)

Camilla the Chicken Goes to Space

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has a mascot, and it’s a rubber chicken. Camilla Corona was sent up on a helium balloon by a group of high school students during last month’s intense solar radiation storm. She was wearing radiation badges and carried sunflower seeds and insects up to 119,000 feet to test the effect of solar radiation at that height. The video is the point at which her balloon popped and sent her back down to Earth.

Not bad for a class science project. NASA never helped my class do work. More details on the project here.

Previously: Stuffed T-rex goes to space.