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NASA Solar Satellite's First Sun Images

Posted by samzenpus on from the picture-in-the-sun dept.

coondoggie writes "NASA today showed off the amazing first pictures of the Sun taken from its 6,800lb Solar Dynamics Observatory flying at an orbit 22,300 miles above Earth. The first images show a variety of activity NASA says provide never-before-seen detail of material streaming outward and away from sunspots. Others show extreme close-ups of activity on the sun's surface. The spacecraft also has made the first high-resolution measurements of solar flares in a broad range of extreme ultraviolet wavelengths."

9 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Careful! by martas · · Score: 5, Funny

    if you look at the article directly, you'll burn out your retinas!

    --
    weinersmith
    1. Re:Careful! by oldspewey · · Score: 5, Funny

      Do not look at article with remaining eye.

      --
      If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
    2. Re:Careful! by mybecq · · Score: 3, Funny

      if you look at the article directly, you'll burn out your retinas!

      I don't think any /. readers will be affected.

  2. 6800 lbs? by navyjeff · · Score: 3, Funny

    I'm glad they told us the weight of the satellite. That sounds like really important information. There's no way we could know if the observatory was fit for science if we didn't know it weighed more than three Volkswagens.

  3. Whoa. But... by Lord+Grey · · Score: 4, Funny

    Specifically, NASA says the SDO will beam back 1.5 terabytes of data every day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's almost 50 times more science data than any other mission in NASA history. It's like downloading 500,000 iTunes a day, NASA stated.

    Apparently iTunes has morphed into a unit of scale. What is that in Library of Congresses?

    --
    // Beyond Here Lie Dragons
  4. Nerds by mister_playboy · · Score: 3, Funny

    Normal guy: How much do you think that chick weighs?
    Slashdot guy: How much do you think that satellite weighs?

    Sounds about right.

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will
  5. Re:Pretty pictures by v1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    and for those of you that have, I hear they're going to release it in braille too.

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
  6. The detail is amazing by dr_dank · · Score: 4, Funny

    If you look closely, you can see the flag that Louis Armstrong planted on the surface.

    --
    Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
  7. Obama politics by formfeed · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's just typical for Obama's disastrous NASA politics:
    Take remote pictures of it from an unmanned observatory.

    -Under George W. we would have landed there!