ESA’s new Proba-2 solar observation satellite captured this stunning image of the annular eclipse that as visible across Africa and Asia on January 15. In an annular eclipse the moon is further from the Earth than it would be during a total eclipse, so part of the Sun remains visible. This eclipse has been the…
Tag: sun
A Stormy Star
This video from the SOHO solar observatory spacecraft shows a a partial rotation of the Sun seen in ultraviolet light (the green color is from the specialized camera filter, corresponding to emissions at 1.5 million degrees Kelvin.) In the Sun’s northern hemisphere an energetic area of solar prominences can be seen, tens of thousands of…
And still they comeā¦
Watching a video of SOHO images today, I noticed two more comets diving toward the Sun (located behind the white circle on the blue disc), on the 8th and the 9th. Both came from the same direction, from the lower left as seen in the still above. Watch the video here. With over 1500 comets…
The End of a Comet’s Tale
These two images, taken by the SOHO solar observatory spacecraft, show the last moments of a comet as it approaches the Sun in what turned out to be its final voyage…the Sun’s radiating energy sizzled the icy traveler shortly after. (See the video version on my earlier post.) The two images were taken with different…
Final Flight
On January 3, the European Space Agency’s SOHO solar observatory spacecraft captured images of a comet flying towards the Sun….and then disappearing into it, evaporating in heat of the solar furnace. The video above, taken by the spacecraft’s Heliospheric Imager which monitors the activity of the Sun’s corona, clearly shows the comet’s final moments before…
Solar Power
This video taken by the SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) spacecraft, a joint project by NASA and the European Space Agency, shows a large bright active region on the Sun rotating into view on November 13. These areas, many times larger than Earth, expel large amounts of solar material and energy in the form of…
Sun Dance
This mesmerizing animation by photographer Alan Friedman shows a solar prominence as it changes structure over the course of 78 minutes. Solar prominences are eruptions of hot gases extending from the sun’s surface, held together by magnetic forces which constantly shift and move. They can last for days or months, and extend thousands and even…
Electric Blue
Yesterday’s Astronomy Picture of the Day was this fantastic image by the talented Alan Friedman, showing the sphere of our Sun taken in a special wavelength of light emitted by hydrogen gas and then inverted to look blue. Incredible details of the Sun’s surface ā the chromosphere ā become visible, most notably the texture…
The Prodigal Sunspot
Researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research have released this stunning image, a high-resolution computer model of a sunspot, created over a period of several weeks by a supercomputer performing at a rate of 76 trillion calculations per second. This is, to date, the most…
Blue Light Special
Ā The European Space Agency’s SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) satellite returned this image today of the sun, taken in ultraviolet light at one-million-degree temperature wavelengths. Bright, twisted areas are regions of hotter storminess while darker spots are cooler zones called coronal holes. The SOHO satellite is positioned in orbit around the sun just inside…
Sun Crossing
Ā This amazing image was taken by NASA photographer Thierry Legault at 12:17 EST on May 13 as the shuttle Atlantis and Hubble Space Telescope passed in front of the sun, a fleeting transit lasting only .8 seconds. More images of this and the previous day’s transit can be found on Legault’s website. Mission astronauts…
Spotlight on the Sun
This month, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory focuses on our solar system’s real superstar: the sun! The video below highlights historical observations of the sun and shows some recent robotic missions that have brought back groundbreaking data about our celestial sovereign. The photo illustration above approximates the comparative size of the sun to our planet Earth….
Lights in the Dark 