The Sun’s surface, in high resolution
Click for movie (though not of this image)
Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was one of a number of pictures released today by the science team operating the new adaptive optics at the 60 inch Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California. It shows the fluffy surface of the Sun, made of many needle-like threads called spicules, with larger bits of plasma (in the center) flung upward and back along the Sun’s magnetic field lines.
If you click on the image, you can watch a 42-second movie produced by many images of a different plasma blob as it changes and evolves. Other short movies produced show bits of this material falling back quickly along those field lines as well as that fluffy surface of needles waving almost like tall prairie grass. The width of the image covers approximately 25,000 miles, which means you could fit about three Earth’s in this space.
To create these images from a ground-based telescope required new technology:
The GST system Cona uses a mirror that continuously reshapes itself 2,200 times per second to counteract the image degradation caused by turbulent air. “Adaptive optics is like a pumped-up autofocus and optical image stabilization in your smartphone camera, but correcting for the errors in the atmosphere rather than the user’s shaky hands,” says BBSO Optical Engineer and Chief Observer, Nicolas Gorceix.
Using this refined imagery, solar scientists will be better able to track and observe the Sun’s small scale behavior (actually quite large on human scales).
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for movie (though not of this image)
Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was one of a number of pictures released today by the science team operating the new adaptive optics at the 60 inch Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California. It shows the fluffy surface of the Sun, made of many needle-like threads called spicules, with larger bits of plasma (in the center) flung upward and back along the Sun’s magnetic field lines.
If you click on the image, you can watch a 42-second movie produced by many images of a different plasma blob as it changes and evolves. Other short movies produced show bits of this material falling back quickly along those field lines as well as that fluffy surface of needles waving almost like tall prairie grass. The width of the image covers approximately 25,000 miles, which means you could fit about three Earth’s in this space.
To create these images from a ground-based telescope required new technology:
The GST system Cona uses a mirror that continuously reshapes itself 2,200 times per second to counteract the image degradation caused by turbulent air. “Adaptive optics is like a pumped-up autofocus and optical image stabilization in your smartphone camera, but correcting for the errors in the atmosphere rather than the user’s shaky hands,” says BBSO Optical Engineer and Chief Observer, Nicolas Gorceix.
Using this refined imagery, solar scientists will be better able to track and observe the Sun’s small scale behavior (actually quite large on human scales).
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“Volcano as a bubble chamber” during solar minimums
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1342937X10001966
Looks like Azathoth
Read the article from T George…fascinating