Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Stereo View of the Sun

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the fly-on-the-wall dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "NASA's STEREO mission will be launched in 2006 with the goal of imaging the sun and the solar winds in 3-D. According to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and to the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), two identical spacecrafts will be placed in different orbits to provide us with 'stereo' views of the Sun. After the launch in Spring 2006, the two observatories will be separated after a couple of months, one orbiting ahead of the Earth, and the other staying behind. So we should be able to see the Sun in 3-D in less than a year."

28 of 158 comments (clear)

  1. Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye by Tackhead · · Score: 4, Funny

    Nothing for you to see anymore. Please stumble along.

    1. Re: Do Not Stare Into Sun With Remaining Good Eye by GillBates0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      And good luck trying to view the "stereo view" with the one remaining eye.

      --
      An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
  2. Can't we do that already? by johndierks · · Score: 5, Funny

    Can't I see the sun in 3-D right now, by looking out the window?

    1. Re:Can't we do that already? by bizard · · Score: 5, Informative
      Not to spoil a good joke, but no. Your eyes aren't far enough apart to get stereo vision past about 18 feet. You can move your head around to improve that (and your brain does a good job of faking it), but not good enough for stereo vision at 1au.

      Another interesting part of the mission is that over a period of several years, the stereo craft will actually get further away from earth giving us an ever changing view. I just saw a talk at the Berkeley SSL by one of the scientists about the new solar weather modeling they will be able to do with it.

    2. Re:Can't we do that already? by Darius+Jedburgh · · Score: 3, Funny

      Clearly your head isn't big enough. Stereo views of distant objects are just more things that are better when your head is the size of a planet.

    3. Re:Can't we do that already? by bizard · · Score: 5, Funny
      better when your head is the size of a planet.

      yeah, but then people give you menial tasks like escorting humans around and opening doors...it all gets very depressing

    4. Re:Can't we do that already? by Dirtside · · Score: 3, Informative

      Head the size of a planet, and they ask me to stare at the sun. Unbelievable...

      --
      "Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
  3. The Old Technology Was Better... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Funny

    So a box with a pin hole is no longer cutting edge technology?

  4. Stereo by steveo777 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Wait, stereo is only two channels. Wouldn't Dolby make more sense?

    --
    This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
  5. How about 180 Degrees? by Lev13than · · Score: 4, Funny

    This 'stereo' view seems a bit silly, since we already know what it looks like from our perspective. I'd like to see a satellite positioned 180 degrees from earth along our orbit, so that we can finally get a look at the dark side of the sun.

    --
    When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
    1. Re:How about 180 Degrees? by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 3, Informative

      I know you're kidding -- but farside imaging exists now. Look here - it is a continuously updated false-color map of the Sun. Of course, the far side data are not a true photograph, but a reconstruction made from measurements of sound waves that propagate all the way through the star.

    2. Re:How about 180 Degrees? by gardyloo · · Score: 4, Funny

      You moron. There would be nothing to see: there's no light on the darkside of the sun.

            Duh. It could carry solar-powered flashlights!

  6. Re:Looks like... by Mayhem178 · · Score: 5, Funny

    They didn't turn down the detail...someone turned up the contrast! I've been staring for 3 hours now and all I see is a big white dot!

    Whoa, if I look away all I see is a big black dot. Damn you, you who messes with the contrast in my head!

    --

    "You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles

  7. Don't look at the Sun! by fak3r · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's an old one, but bears repeating:

    Every time there is a solar eclipse you will find astronomers warning you to never look directly at the Sun. Even more importantly, you should not look at the Sun through a telescope unless you have a professional solar filter that covers the front of the telescope. Why?

    The Sun is very bright and by focussing the light onto the back of your eye (the retina) with or without a telescope, you are putting a lot of energy (both optical light and infra-red) onto a tiny area. At some point in your life you may have tried to set paper on fire using a magnifying glass, so just think about that being done to the back of your eye. It isn't nice. Even more scarily is the fact that the retina of your eye does not have pain receptors, so you will not even feel the damage being done. It may not even become apparent until later.

    I built the shoebox with the pinhole deal when I was a kid, and remember being scared to death on the day the eclipse occured!

    --
    fak3r.com
    1. Re:Don't look at the Sun! by Dr.+Zowie · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Ah, jeez, that old thing. Looking at an eclipse is quite a different affair than looking just at the Sun. Looking directly at the Sun with your naked eye is dazzling and maybe a little stupid, but it won't make you go blind: the human eye's minimum pupil size is coincidentally just small enough to handle the energy flux (which makes sense in the context of evolution). Eclipses trigger a bug in the eye's auto-aperture system, so that your pupil can end up wide open as you look at the mostly-eclipsed Sun. That can 'burn' pinholes in your retina.

    2. Re:Don't look at the Sun! by Dutchmaan · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Speaking of the pinhole viewing of eclipses.. Back in the early 90's there was a near total eclipse where I was going to school. My car was a convertible and it was a bright warm day in May..

      Well, stopping at the drive up ATM which happened to be located under a young tree... I looked down and my car seat was covered with hundreds of tiny eclipses coming into and out of focus as the sunglight came through tiny "pinholes" made by the spaces between overlapping leaves which were slowly moving with the small breeze. It was quite a sight to behold right there in my car.

  8. somewhat current sun pic by fak3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This image of 1,500,000C gas in the Sun's thin, outer atmosphere (corona) was taken March 13, 1996 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. Every feature in the image traces magnetic field structures. Because of the high quality instrument, more of the suttle and detail magnetic features can be seen than ever before. (Courtesy ESA/NASA)

    http://www.solarviews.com/raw/sun/eitfexii.jpg

    Freaky looking, but damn cool!

    --
    fak3r.com
    1. Re:somewhat current sun pic by RapidEye · · Score: 3, Informative

      Here is a link to ALL of the different Sun Pictures in all sorts of wavelengths and formats:
      http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/

      Yes, those are Live and RealTime Shots

      Enjoy!

      PS - and yes, that is a NEW set of sunspots getting ready to cross the sun!

      --
      "Murderer? Well, that's a harsh word. I prefer to think of myself as a Mortality Technician."
  9. It's 3-D! by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Funny

    You would need a box with TWO pinholes to equal this advance in technology!

    The trick is making one pinhole red and the other blue...

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:It's 3-D! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I must be getting old... :P

  10. We can't do that already. by Webmoth · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, we can't see it in 3D when we look out the window. The reason is that our interocular distance - the spacing between our eyes, about 60-70 mm - is too narrow in relation to the distance involved. I don't recall the practical limit of this ratio, but beyond a certain range all objects appear to lie in the same plane. When you look at the moon, shading is your only clue that it is not a flat disk. (Does a single-image photograph of the moon have any less appearance of depth than when you look at the moon directly?) This is also why we can't tell just by looking how far away each star is. We can only tell by observing the stars at opposite ends of Earth's orbit -- effectively making the interocular distance millions of miles.

    --
    Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
  11. Stupid frickn' NASA Wasting Money by OzPeter · · Score: 3, Funny

    (grumble, whinge, complain)

    Fat lot of good its going to me .. I am blind in one eye, so I *can't* see in 3-D .. No matter how good the fricking cameras are .. I'll still see in 2-D. Waste of money .. blah .. blah .. blah ...

    (/grumble, whinge, complain)

    (And for the humour impaired .. yes that was not to be taken seriously .. even though I *am* blind in one eye)

    (And for the spelling impaired .. American English is *not* my native tongue)

    --
    I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
  12. Make your own 3D images of Mars and things by saskboy · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/spotlight/3d01.html

    NASA provides a guide for those with Photoshop, to make red / blue stereo images like you see on their website.

    If anyone wants to convert the steps in the link to The Gimp 2.2, I'd be very greatful. I get stuck on about step 5 when I paste the 2 colour image into the other grey one and don't get the shaddowy red blue image that needs adjusting.

    --
    Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
  13. SOHO daily views are best for now by Lu · · Score: 4, Informative

    Some of the best images of the sun's daily activity are to be found at SOHO's site, http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/. I check it daily.

    If you choose "the sun now" and then the MPEG or animated gif of the LASCO C3 (full res is best - and I'm so sorry SOHO for doing this to you!!!) you can watch as a comet makes a close approach to the sun today. Happens every few days. Sometimes they make it out the back, but most get eaten up. We'll see with this one.

  14. Launch at night by sapped · · Score: 3, Funny

    I hope they realise that they need to launch these craft at night otherwise the sun is going to burn them to a crisp.

  15. Glory Be! by Octopus · · Score: 3, Funny

    Just when I was losing faith in NASA...

    THE HUBBLE VIEWMASTER

    http://www.worldwideslides.com/View-Master/sp.html

  16. Can't...Resist...Karma Burn by emarkp · · Score: 3, Funny

    Ze goggles! Zey do nuzing!

  17. 3D image here. by Derling+Whirvish · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I did what I said and extracted two consecutive frames from the SOHO images and 3d-ified them with red/cyan images (so you can use your 3D glasses from Spy Kids 3D or Shark Boy/Lava Girl or some other 3D DVD you have at home). The left eye is red, right eye cyan. Consecutive images were too flat, so this is from frame 170 and frame 172 of the animated gif. I dropped it down from false-color to black and white to make it easier to see.

    What do you think?

    http://img487.imageshack.us/my.php?image=3dsun9li. jpg

    Some of the features have evolved. But the sphere shape is there as are some of the more macro features such as the corona and flares. The granules don't match up though.

    That's from about five minutes of work.