Here Comes the Sun, in High Definition

http://www.aolnews.com/science/article/here-comes-the-sun-in-high-definition/19449994?icid=main|main|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fscience%2Farticle%2Fhere-comes-the-sun-in-high-definition%2F19449994

April 22) -- Your mother may have told you to never stare at the sun. But you won't be able to look away from the first set of stunning images from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The pictures taken by the 3-ton satellite, which was thrown into the Earth's orbit three months ago, show our nearest star up close and in ultra-fine detail. Arcs of superheated plasma are captured as they erupt from the sun's surface and soar tens of thousands of miles into space. Waves of charged gas are seen rippling out across the star's surface, traveling at 500,000 miles an hour. And ultraviolet cameras capture the swirls and turbulence at the heart of the raging inferno.

While other high-definition satellites have snapped small segments of the sun's surface before, the SDO can observe the entirety of the solar disc. As well as seeing the big picture, it can also zoom in and pick out features as small as 220 miles across. (Pretty impressive, when you realize that the sun is some 90 million miles away.)

"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.



But the $856 million SDO does much more than take pretty pictures. Its three remote-sensing instruments can reveal the physics at work inside, on the surface and in the atmosphere of the sun. That's crucial information. After all, solar activity can shut down electrical equipment on Earth and cause wild fluctuations in the climate. The 1.5 terabytes of data -- about 500,000 MP3s' worth -- the satellite sends back to Earth daily could help scientists better predict when these events are likely to happen and understand the sub-surface forces that trigger them in the first place.

Our neighborhood star, it seems, is finally getting its moment in the sun.

LOL

I posted this on my other forum WFIGS:

http://wfigs.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=174696

:p

DAMN!! The Sun looks AWESOME!!