Spacecraft Offers Deep Window Into Sun's Hellishly Hot Shell! (awesome pic)

A NASA spacecraft is giving scientists great looks at parts of the sun's superhot atmosphere that had previously evaded detailed study.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/58cd9d36a80f.jpg[/atsimg]
This zoomed-in image shows how the Sun's magnetic field shapes hot coronal plasma. Photos like this highlight the ever-changing connections between gas captured by the Sun's magnetic field and gas escaping into interplanetary space. NASA/LMSAL/SAO

The outer layer of the sun's atmosphere, called the corona, is hotter than the solar surface, but its tenuous light gets swamped by the much brighter solar disk. Historically, researchers have studied the corona during eclipses, when the moon blocks out the disk and reveals the corona, or by using an instrument called a coronagraph, which similarly blocks out the sun's disk.

However, eclipses are relatively rare and don't last long, and coronagraphs occlude the inner parts of the corona. Now, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is helping scientists overcome these problems, yielding unprecedented views of the innermost corona 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The instrument aboard SDO that makes this possible is called the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly. AIA's images highlight the ever-changing connections between gas captured by the sun's magnetic field and gas escaping into interplanetary space, researchers said.

Source: www.foxnews.com...


Yeah, I know... Amazing. Nothing more much be said. Just stare at the pic for a while. And think....

We are so minisucle in the big picture....

Or are we? If we are the only race that can leave it's planet... I guess we are the big Dogs then....

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

reply to post by anon72


Now thats beautifull!

Second

Hopefully the new information will bring new insights.

And if it doesn't, who cares, it's great to just look at in awe!

reply to post by Okandetre

And if it doesn't, who cares, it's great to just look at in awe!

Agree. The sheer power of it. I wish we could hear the fury of it.

what a wonderful time to be alive----Space Exploration wise.