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The Sun
The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites. Seen below are some recent images of the Sun in more active times. (21 photos total)
A sweeping prominence, a huge cloud of relatively cool dense plasma is seen suspended in the Sun's hot, thin corona. At times, promineces can erupt, escaping the Sun's atmosphere. Emission in this spectral line shows the upper chromosphere at a temperature of about 60,000 degrees K (over 100,000 degrees F). Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structure. The hottest areas appear almost white, while the darker red areas indicate cooler temperatures. (Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium)
NASA's STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet on April 4, 2007. The collision caused the complete detachment of the comet's plasma tail. Comets are icy leftovers from the solar system's formation billions of years ago. They usually hang out in the cold, distant regions of the solar system, but occasionally a gravitational tug from a planet, another comet, or even a nearby star sends them into the inner solar system. Once there, the sun's heat and radiation vaporizes gas and dust from the comet, forming its tail. Comets typically have two tails, one made of dust and a fainter one made of electrically conducting gas, called plasma. (NASA/STEREO) #
Image of an active solar region taken on July 24, 2002 near the eastern limb of the Sun. The image highlights the three-dimensional nature of the photosphere when seen at these large angles. The structures in the dark sunspots in the upper central area of the image show distinct elevation above the dark "floor" of the sunspot. The height of the structures has been estimated by Dr. Bruce Lites of the High Altitude Observatory to be between 200 and 450 km. The smallest resolvable features in the image are about 70 km in size. There are also numerous bright "faculae" visible on the edges of granules that face towards the observer. (Prof. Goran Scharmer/Dr. Mats G. Löfdahl/Institute for Solar Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) #
The total solar eclipse of February 16, 1980 was photographed from Palem, India, by a research team from the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The photograph of the solar corona was taken with a camera system developed by Gordon A. Newkirk, Jr. This specialized instrument photographs the corona in red light, 6400 A -- through a radially graded filter that suppresses the bright inner corona in order to show the much fainter streamers of the outer corona in the same photograph. (Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee / High Altitude Observatory (HAO), University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR)) #
Solar flares produce seismic waves in the Sun's interior that closely resemble those created by earthquakes on our planet. On May 27, 1998, researchers observed this flare-generated solar quake that contained about 40,000 times the energy released in the great earthquake that devastated San Francisco in 1906, equivalent to an 11.3 magnitude earthquake, scientists calculated. Over the course of an hour, the solar waves traveled for a distance equal to 10 Earth diameters before fading into the fiery background of the Sun's photosphere. Unlike water ripples that travel outward at a constant velocity, the solar waves accelerated from an initial speed of 22,000 miles per hour to a maximum of 250,000 miles per hour before disappearing. (Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA) #
The image shows the corona for a moderately active Sun, with some (red) hot active regions in both hemispheres, surrounded by the (blue/green) cooler plasma of the quiet-Sun corona. Notice also the north polar-crown filament, the trans-equatorial loops, and the coronal hole in the south-east (lower-right) corner of the image and the smaller one over the north pole. This image shows the solar corona in a false-color, 3-layer composite: the blue, green, and red channels show the 171Å, 195Å, and 284Å wavelengths, respectively (most sensitive to emission from 1, 1.5, and 2 million degree gases). (TRACE Project, Stanford-Lockheed Institute for Space Research, NASA) #
This TRACE 171Å-wavelength image from November 11, 2006 shows a sizeable active region at the east limb of the Sun (rotated clockwise 90 degrees so north is to the right) just as it rotates onto Earth-facing hemisphere. Notice the low-lying dark structures of filaments at the leading edge of the region, some "levitating" dark material on the right-hand side of the region, and the small ephemeral region towards the lower right. (NASA/TRACE) #
The Sun, observed on May 22, 2008. With the Sun persisting in a near-minimal state of activity, only a few small regions of some activity are seen on the disk. The cell-like appearance is formed by the multitude of small clusters of magnetic flux that are collected in the downflow regions of the supergranular network of convective motions. (NASA/TRACE) #
TRACE 171Å image of an erupting solar filament above Active Region 9077 on July 19, 2000. Filaments are concentrated bundles of magnetic field filled with relatively cool gas, suspended in the solar corona. When they become unstable, they can erupt, triggering coronal mass ejections and solar flares. The dark material here is relatively cool, while the bright material is hotter than a million degrees. As this hot material cools, it condenses and drains down the lines of magnetic field in the corona much like beads moving along a wire, a process some scientists refer to as "coronal rain." (Caption courtesy Dan Seaton, Photo courtesy Dick Shine, NASA/TRACE) #
This LASCO C2 image, taken 8 January 2002, shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour. The C2 image was turned 90 degrees so that the blast seems to be pointing down. An EIT 304 Angstrom image from a different day was enlarged and superimposed on the C2 image so that it filled the occulting disk for effect (Courtesy of SOHO/LASCO consortium) #
NASA's STEREO (Ahead) spacecraft observed this visually stunning prominence eruption on Sept. 29, 2008 in the 304 wavelength of extreme UV light. It rose up and cascaded to the right over several hours, appearing something like a flag unfurling, as it broke apart and headed into space. The material observed is actually ionized Helium at about 60,000 degrees. Prominences are relatively cool clouds of gas suspended above the Sun and controlled by magnetic forces. (NASA/STEREO) #
A transit of the Moon across the face of the Sun on February 25, 2007 - but not seen from Earth. This sight was visible only from the STEREO-B spacecraft in its orbit about the sun, trailing behind the Earth. NASA's STEREO mission consists of two spacecraft launched in October, 2006 to study solar storms. STEREO-B is currently about 1 million miles from the Earth, 4.4 times farther away from the Moon than we are on Earth. As the result, the Moon appears 4.4 times smaller than what we are used to. (NASA/STEREO) #
On September 30, 2001, TRACE observed an M1.0 flare in an active region very near to the solar limb. Fragments of a prominence hovered above the regions, with filamentary dark (relatively cool) material moving along the field lines, which then spread to form this dragon-like bright outline. (NASA/TRACE) #
More links and information
Sunspots Are Fewest Since 1954, but Significance Is Unclear - NYTimes.com, 10/2/2008
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory - Official Site
Institute for Solar Physics - Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Space Weather Bureau - NASA
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
Isso prova que existe um criador , cujo nome é JEOVÁ !!!
wow those pics are so pretty
wow there great lol
Is the sun hot???
what a fantastic picture. i don.t believe god as i am believe on reality.......but it s supemme powers gift to all creaturs who live on this beautiful planet. "earth"
this simply excellent really i astonished THANK U NASA
hi
this is a so much kindness of our God to give us the opertunity to see this kind pictures>
We are nothing but star dust........
its preety
It’s interesting to find how challenging the content side is for some
they were the best photos i have ever seen
useful information. It’s really good
cool
truly loved the article added to my favourites
these pics are so sic i love em i wish i was in space right now.
those pictures r scary to me
halo the sun is like a fire
Off course purely science, but what is science?
Other than, discovering the laws of physics, chemistry, biology... that all pinpoint to a design in every detail in the universe, in the atom, in the cells, in the DNA, in your eyes and in your ears it is very unlikely that chaos ordered them to produce well functioning organisms and this is before evolution because to get evolution we should first have a well functioning organism that evolutes.
So unintelligent matter cannot evolute into an eye or even a cell that knows how to duplicate and behave in its environment to feed itself as a minimum to ensure continuity so we get diverse living organisms.
So probably the designer has given us humans brain and mind to use them to discover and explore the material world objectively by discovering the signs and traces of his design by following the evidences not by blind faith and to admire him and not denying this when all evidences lead to this conclusion.
Human mind and intelligence are not given by the “Designer” so we can get material pleasure so we can feed ourselves and reproduce and not to fight each other to control territories and resources because animals can do that with a lot less intelligence and off course this intelligence is also there not for having a blind faith in a creator without questioning because he has given us this brain and questioning mind so this mind and intelligence are the tools to know him (NOT BLIND FAITH) so it is not really strange to get a book like the Kura’an that includes all of the above ideas and asks us to follow the evidence without prejudging or judging without evidence and that claims that it is from the designer and creator and includes clear evidences that supports this claim, an objective and intelligent person will search and accept the truth without prejudging off course the bible and other books and other prophets are all true and honest too but the idea of following the evidence is more clear in the kura’an and as imam Ali PBUH said : God sent his messengers to stimulate the brains and objective thinking so that humans don’t live like sheeps.
This is Islam believe me but unfortunately some ignorant people and some other on purpose are doing a lot of bad acts in the name of Islam while this has nothing to do with Islam and people should not judge on Islam based on them.
these pictures are beast!
these are cracilackin
IT,IS VERY BEAUYIFUL .THANKU FOR SHOWINGING ME THIS BIG PICTURE OF SUN.
wowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww cool pics huh!
im learning about space but i have never seen the sun like that before
the pictures were awsome a teacher evan thinks there awsome......................................... well done for N.A.S.A
but in some of them they look fake lol !!!!!!! but good job N.A.S.A
Can anyone see the phoenix in 16? How about it?
these pictures are amazing i used them for my astronomy class
ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS PICTURES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
i was thought was every day that how is sun give us light and how it is look like so thanks to team of sun biggest picture who introduces to us with sun im very very thankful to them.
Very nice site!
wow!
that is amazing i would have never know that the sun looks like that i think it really cool
esta perfecto muchas gracias por el aporte
Allahu ekber.
CONSIDER THIS PLEASE !
IT HAS BEEN LIKE THIS EVER SINCE GOD PUT IT THERE.
MANKIND IS ONLY NOW INTELLIGENT ENOUGH TO LIGHTLY TOUCH UPON HIS GLORY.
KEEP THE FAITH UNTIL HIS RETURN.
it's toatally aaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwweeeeeeeeessssssoooooooommmmmmmeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
There's much more to be reveal about our living sun. Answers to questions mankind has always searched for.
wow
MARWAN
then in the name of God, we shall kill ignorant Muslims so that the intelligent and those living in good will shall live on and not breed ignorant children and full of hatred for everything the don't understand.
We are all brothers, regardless of our religious creed. We were from the same God, only a moron would deny that. We should be travelling into space by now if it wasn't for the constant warring & fighting over stupid causes like cartoon pictures of Muhamad, over women MUST be veiled,etc.
Allahuakbar, may God be with you all.
It puts into perspective how much of a small role we play in the grand scheme of things. If only we treated each other as beautifully as the
universe has been created (if it was created or has it been here always)
then everything would be perfect.
GOD IS AWESOME
Allah hu Akbar. " Innallaha ala kulli shain qhadeer.i was thought was every day that how is sun give us light and how it is look like so thanks to team of sun biggest picture who introduces to us with sun im very very thankful to them.
Now I know why it was 100+ degrees in San Diego all this past week.. DAM It was hot !! Keep up the good work, awesome pictures and story.
aweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesome
have you ever wondered how does God holds everything in space? Just look at that big beautiful sun and marvel that it just stays in place. God is so wonderful and so good to us. Praise his name forever. I am so awe struck when I look at these pictures and think ----they just stay in place as God holds them . I can't really express what I feel and how it all is makes me feel..it is just awesome!!!!!
This info I have found very useful and interesting. Will use with my class. God in all his glory.
Its truth of sun
WHEN THE SUN GET,S VERY CLOSE TO THE EARTH , DOES THE SUN FLARE OFF AND HIT EARTH REALLY BAD?????? VERY KNOWLEDGE ABOUT the sun and Eath. Thank you.
wow those pics are amazing!!!
Very Nice Picture. Only Truth is SUN in World. +91 9804066660
wow.. so red, does it mean it is so close to the end???As red means old enough to say good bye...anytime soon?hm.. better be prepared!!
No, it's not really red; these images are all taken through filters and provide false-colors. The Sun is naturally a yellowish-white color, although in billions of years it will evolve into a red giant.
WICKED
wow really cool(;kinda sacred when the
next eclipesxD lol(:
this is unbelieveable!!!!!!!!
ALLAH HO AKBAR!
LA ALLAH!
uR R AWESOME GOD!!
WE SHOULD REALLY THANK GOD YOU UNMUSLIMS!
Proof of our Lord's exsistance!!!!beyond amazing!!!!
thee pictureses were varey neet
This closer image of the sun its so amazing.I like this closer image of the SUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
These are magnificent astronomical images of the sun I've ever seen. In space we are certainly less than a grain of sand and thanks to God we exists.
i fricken love the sun
These pictures are scaring.
God saves us from the heat and fire of hill.
These truly are amazing pictures, kinda puts things into perspective huh?
and no disrespect to the religious people who have commented here but the universe and probably many other universes are full of wonderful things like solar systems, nebula, planets, stars.. it's never ending stuff and infinite beyond our belief & comprehension.. yes it was all formed but something had to happen and thats why we have what we have now, we have nothing else to compare it too, we're here because of a series of events.. not by god sitting in his workshop. But this doesn't make it any less beautiful and amazing, infact it makes it even more amazing.
wow it's something incredible I see that the sun turn on its self and not stable but what you don't know is that move is mentioned since 1400 years ago in the coran the holy book of musulman you can verify that reality Allah Akbar thanks god who illuminate our life by this a dangerous and wonderful star which calculated by millimeters, which means that nothing happen from its self as a series of events, sun to worm the earth moderately,sky which let a special percentage of good radiation to be passed on our planet and forbid a lot of killing radiations, sea, wind,water,etc. - so incredible harmony can not be happen just a series of accidentally events.
The sun looks cool in soooo many ways!!!!!!!!!!!!
Clare,
I appreciate your awe and wonder at the sun and our universe. I will have to respectfully disagree with you about the "series of accidently events". Scientists have actually ruled that out because the probability of all this happening by chance is improbable. Most scientists who have studied these things agree that there was a Supreme Intelligent Designer who placed all this hear. It is scientifically impossible others.
Said in Love,
JMW
THIS IS A SINE OF GODS BUETY PROVION UNLIMITED POWER AND LOVE . THIS IS ALSO WHY WE ALL SHOOD RESPECT FEAR AND MOEST ALL LOVE HIM WHITH ALL THAT IS WHITHIN USE. PLEASE FORGIVE MY SPELLING ..........THANKYOU
WOW SUCH A AMAZING PICTURE
EVEN FROM A SMALL TO BIG THING
GOD IS CREATING IN A SUCH A BRILLIANT WAY
NO WORDS TO PRAISE THE ALMIGHTY GOD
wow!!surprise
the fenomena
wow! ! It is.. very cool!
beware ye sinners thou shall be cast into the lake of fire.....................
these are really cute .i dont know much about the sun but this is adorable .i really want to learn more about the sun and how it works !lOl .
-much love !
-A lOVE .
i love the pink sun it is cute!!!!!!
The purpleish sun was super cool. But im not mocking any ones religion but every comment on her is manly about god. Yes these pictures are fantastic but no one can really prove there is a GOD with simple pictures. NO ONE is a billion percent correct that there is. it took technology to take these pictures not god. if technology wasn't repressed for so many years in the dark ages we could have very many cures for so many thing and we could have even proven or denied god.
Great pictures! All made by hard working scientists - not priest...
really kool pix!!! I've not seen pics like this b4........beyomd amazin!!!!!!
I don't get the relationship between pics of the sun and an imaginary god. Pathetic ... what are all these religious nut cases on this blog? Yeah keep believing in fairy tales.
yes i can see the phoenix
IDEMO DŽABUANERI, PRSKAMO !
GOD IS GREAT , GOD IS ONLY ONE, NO FATHER OF ALLAH, NO SUN OF ALLAH, NO FAMILY OF ALLAH, GOD IS ONLY ONE IN THE ALL WORLDS, GOD HAD CONTINUE, GOD HAVE CONTINUE , GOD WILL CONTINUE, MUHAMMAD (PBAH) LAST MESSENGER OF ALLAH
SUN ITNA POWER FULL HAI TU MERA RAB( ALLAH) KITNA POWER FULL HOGA,
ALLAH TU HAR CHEZ PER QADIR HAI.
AKBAR JAVED, KARACHI, PAKISTAN
Nice Picture.I am happy to see that..send my E-mail world beautiful Picture.
I Love Picture. Mony Hossain.Bangladesh.
those were awesome i like the purplish one
Very nice site!
Jeez... What is with all the idiots on here? Can anyone form a complete sentence? Hey, idiots... If a red line appears under your typed word, its spelled wrong! Fix it! Anyway, I think this blog illustrate only imbeciles believe in a god.
And, JMW... No REAL scientists believe in "Intelligent Design". Intelligent Design is a HOAX! Please children, do not believe what you are told about Intelligent Design.
ALLAH'ým sen ne büyüksün nelerin var bizler gördükçe þaþýrýp kalýyoruz
It’s pretty funny that yet some how the believers in a god can pick and choose when it comes to religion and science!!! Sorry, you can’t have both people! The best part is that when you actually spend time learning about space you find that the earth is so small and insignificant in terms of the universe......HA! Yeah, god's a genius!
HAHA thats the sun
awesome pics very gooooooooooooooooooooooood
I used these pictures and got an "A" on my science test.THANK YOU GOD FOR LETTING ME GET AN "A"
whoa the sun really is smokin
merinda
the sun is a very important thing in the world if we didnt have energy we wouldnt have food or cars or animals
Since the dawn of mankind there has always been a power seen but unseen and yet so misunderstood. This same power is the same awesome power that sustains the Stars, the Planets, the Moon, and the Sun. It would be foolish of us as men and women, another phenomenon of God's ingenuity, to believe that the God of the Heavens does not exist. I strongly urge all non-believers to reconsider their belief in God's "seen but unseen" presence. For it has been evidence of since the dawn of our existance as men and women as your eyes and mine have beheld in these beautiful and respect demanding photos. Science is a word taught to us as children by the school systems, designed to create a world of unbelievers and give glory to man. God is a verb, and has demonstrated and proven so by "creating" everything that "is," and is deserving of proper acknowledgement. It was God's "science" that brought forth life and all that our brains scramble to unravel to no aveil. Who can understand God's Divine Hands but God's Divine Thought? With this I leave all my readers as I came with love and peace. Behold and Believe the Glory of GOD!!!
cenabý allah ýn yaratma kudretýdýr güneþ ise bunun içinde inanoglunun tasavvur edemeyecegý kadar kucuktur
ALLAH-U EKBER
LA ÝLAHE ÝLLEALLAH
To be honest, somehow these pictures freakin me out. How about the hellfire later if we have to go there. This is just sun. The fire was freak, how about hell? Repent people, pray not to be fated to be in hell. These pictures shows how big is Allah.
These pics rock!
I have always been a fan of the sun this adds some wonderment to the equation for sure!!!!!
Praise God!
Very nice site!
the pictures are awsome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
awesomeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
i love these pics
God is Great, Subhanallah
Very nice site!
Fantastic, fantastic
Who create all this???
If a small watch made by people, Who made all these universe??
Must be Super Creature had made it.
Is it G O D ??
I think so