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NASA
MISSION TO TOUCH THE SUN: NASA's daring plan
to visit the sun took a giant leap forward today with the
selection of five key science investigations for the Solar
Probe+ spacecraft. Get the full
story from Science@NASA.
BLOWING
BUBBLES: Emerging sunspot 1105 erupted today
at 1520 UT, producing a B2-class solar flare. The minor blast
blew a bubble in the sun's atmosphere more than 50,000 km
wide. The action unfolds in this extreme ultraviolet movie
from the Solar Dynamics Observatory:
Watch
it again. The bubble is the dark crescent-shaped void
expanding to the upper left of the sunspot's bright magnetic
canopy. Several copies of our entire planet Earth could fit
inside that volume with room to spare. What seems huge by
Earth-standards, however, is miniscule on the sun. At maximum,
the bubble occupied a volume less than 0.003% of the total
solar globe. It's all relative,
after all.
Stay tuned for bigger bubbles as sunspot 1105
continues to grow.
VIRTUAL
REALITY PARHELIC CIRCLE: A parhelic
circle is an unforgettable sight. Thin and pale, it circles
the zenith in a majestic arc, always keeping the same distance
above the horizon. "I've been looking for a parhelic
circle for more than 13 years," says photographer Laurent
Laveder of Pluguffan, France. "Yesterday I finally
saw one." He rushed for his camera and quickly snapped
enough pictures to assemble a complete 360o zenith-to-horizon
composite view of the phenomenon. Click on the image below
to experience the VR
parhelic circle:
Parhelic circles are caused by sunlight reflecting from the
vertical faces of ice crystals--millions of them floating
in thin cirrus clouds spread almost evenly across the wide
blue sky. As Les Cowley notes in his authoritative
web page on the subject, "the parhelic circle appears
simple yet more ray paths contribute to it than in any other
halo. Some are very intricate."
A striking aspect of the parhelic circle is its dual personality.
At the same time it appears both circular and straight. "These
two pictures (1,
2) illustrate
the effect," says Laveder. More images may be found here.
August
2010 Northern Lights Gallery
[previous Augusts: 2009,
2008, 2007,
2006, 2005,
2004, 2003]
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