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Five Glorious Years of Sun Images In a Four-Minute Video

Posted by Soulskill on from the dang,-sun dept.

An anonymous reader writes: In early 2010, NASA launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It carried a number of sensors dedicated to watching and measuring various aspects of the Sun. The SDO's team just celebrated its fifth anniversary by going through a half-decade worth of images, pulling out the most amazing ones, and stitching them into an amazing video (YouTube). It includes enormous flares, sunspots, the transit of Venus, and more.

2 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. Speechless by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wow, I'm simply speechless... (but I'll try anyway)

    The Sun is far more beautiful than I imagined... I had some idea from drawings and older pictures that the sun was active, but I had no idea it was THAT active... so much that we don't know...

    To quote Agent K:

    "1,500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody knew that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow."

    1. Re:Speechless by Celarent+Darii · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Columbus was able to convince not only the Queen Isabella, but also the crews and investors who financed the voyage. There was never question of whether India was on the other side of the ocean, but rather of how far away it was. Columbus had a much smaller number than was commonly admitted, which is one reason he got the funds to go [he won the contract, if you will]. Yet the question was on how many degrees of longitude, not on whether the earth was round.

      In fact just read most medieval poetry and songs, which were well known to the people. They always refer to the earth as 'this globe' or the sphere. Even a simple sailor knows why the the ship going over the horizon doesn't just get smaller, it also 'descends' over the horizon or disappears. The visible effect of the earth's curvature is visible on the open ocean at just 100 km distance so this is something that even simple workers would know about from observation.

      The myth that people thought the earth was flat is just simply 19th century re-invention of history. It has no basis in fact.