Onelargeprawn
Created by German design studio, Kurzgesagt, this informative, minimalist animation takes us on a tour through the solar system, stopping off at each of the eights planets to provide a few factoids you may or may not know. The flat design and bright trendy colours belie a rather dark and inevitable truth…
[via FastCo]
Every day is a scorcher on the star at the centre of our solar system. And on some days it even rains.
In mid-July 2012, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a most beautiful phenomenon that resulted from the combination of solar winds and a solar flare. It’s termed coronal rain.
As the plasma cools and fall back to the surface, the Sun’s magnetic field creates a series of coronal loops that look like they were streams from a sourceless waterfall. The time-lapse video captures a coronal rain shower that lasted 10 hours at temperatures over 49,000 degrees Celsius! See it below.
[via APOD]
Sometimes the boffins over at NASA like to have a bit of fun. Images of the sun captured from their Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission were enhanced, not to add any further scientific value, but to make them look purdy.
The visualization shows the movement of plasma in the sun’s atmosphere. The corona as it is called reaches temperatures of 600000 Kelvin, or 599726.85 degrees Celsius! Have a look at our beautiful Incandescent Sun below.
To download the images and HD video, travel to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
[via Holy Kaw]
Our planet produces many spectacular light shows, such as aurorae (Borealis & Australis), ball lightning (including the super awesome atmospheric lighting), and the odd meteor shower. I would give certain appendages to be able to witness these in the flesh, but none more so than the splendidly epic Sundogs.
Sundogs appear to the left and right of the sun, best viewed when during sunrise or sunset. This effect is also referred to as a mock sun, due to the fact it appears to show three suns in the better examples. Unlike aurorae, sundogs can be viewed all over the world, although they are rare. So there’s a semi-good chance of viewing one, which makes me happy.
This natural phenomenon is a byproduct of hexagonal ice crystals, curiously named diamond dust (or more scientifically called clear-sky precipitation), which under certain conditions cause the effect.
What actually causes this is a bit beyond me, but the basic principle is that of refraction. Detailed explanation of sundogs can be found on Wikipedia and for those not interested in reading too much mumbo jumbo, like myself, here is a diagram of how it all works.
Some juicy photographs of this spectacle after the jump.
Black Rain is a short film by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt from the art duo, Semiconductor. They sourced the images from the satellites used in NASA’s STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) mission that traced the flow of energy and matter from the Sun to Earth.
Working with STEREO scientists, Semiconductor collected all the HI image data to date, revealing the journey of the satellites from their initial orientation, to their current tracing of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Solar wind, CMEs (coronal mass ejections), passing planets and comets orbiting the sun can be seen as background stars and the milky way pass by.
Have a look at Black Rain below.
[via CreativeApplications]
On February 11th, NASA launched the the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), a spacecraft designed to study our sun. It’s on a five-year mission gathering data that will aid scientists to better understand how solar activity affects our climate and our lives. The highly advanced SDO is said to take images that are 10 times better than current HD TVs and will be sending back a whopping 1.5 terabytes of data back to Earth each and every each day!
The solar-observing spacecraft has been beaming back early images and videos and they look quite amazing. Have a look for yourself, after the jump.
Of late I’ve been loving the Old Spice ads. The Manmercials were hilariously funny and totally convinced me that men shouldn’t smell like sunsets and baby powder. A man on a horse told me that.
The latest ads for Old Spice’s new Odor Blocker body wash are equally funny, but with added absurdity care of muscle-bound actor Terry Crews (The Expendables, Everybody Hates Chris). Crews waxes lyrical about the product amid talking abdominals, building kicks, and Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-power!
Check out all the LOLworthy ads after the jump.
