Corona Radiata

The Electric Sun

the journey

out there

Pluto


Neptune


Uranus


Saturn


Jupiter


Mars


Earth


Venus


Mercury


Sol

storms a comin'

PASADENA, Calif. -- Scientists analyzing data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft now have the first-ever, up-close details of a Saturn storm that is eight times the surface area of Earth.

On Dec. 5, 2010, Cassini first detected the storm that has been raging ever since. It appears approximately 35 degrees north latitude of Saturn. Pictures from Cassini's imaging cameras show the storm wrapping around the entire planet covering approximately 2 billion square miles (4 billion square kilometers).

The storm is about 500 times larger than the biggest storm previously seen by Cassini during several months from 2009 to 2010. Scientists studied the sounds of the new storm's lightning strikes and analyzed images taken between December 2010 and February 2011. Data from Cassini's radio and plasma wave science instrument showed the lightning flash rate as much as 10 times more frequent than during other storms monitored since Cassini's arrival to Saturn in 2004. The data appear in a paper published this week in the journal Nature. (read more)

Solar Max

The most powerful flare ever observed was the first one to be observed, on September 1, 1859, and was reported by British astronomer Richard Carrington and independently by an independent observer named Richard Hodgson. The event is named the Solar storm of 1859, or the "Carrington event". The flare was visible to a naked-eye (in white light), and produced stunning auroras down to tropical latitudes such as Cuba or Hawaii. The flare left a trace in Greenland ice in the form of nitrates and beryllium-10, which allow its strength to be measured today (New Scientist, 2005). Cliver & Salvgaard (2004) reconstructed the effects of this flare and compared with other events of the last 150 years. In their words: While the 1859 event has close rivals or superiors in each of the above categories of space weather activity, it is the only documented event of the last 150 years that appears at or near the top of all of the lists.


On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over the Rocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed in some cases even shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire. Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.

The last solar maximum was in 2000. The next solar maximum is currently predicted to occur sometime between January and May 2013 and to be one of the weakest cycles since 1928. The unreliability of solar maxima is demonstrated in that NASA had previously predicted the solar maximum for 2010/2011 and possibly to occur as late as 2012. Previously, on March 10, 2006, NASA researchers had announced that the next solar maximum would be the strongest since the historic maximum in 1859 in which the northern lights could be seen as far south as Rome, approximately 42° north of the equator. (read more)

The next solar max could be powerful enough to knock out electric power grids around the world for months or even longer.
(space storm)

How about a little..."perspective"

Spinning Lifeboat

We are spinning around on earth at 1,000 mph...

while we are orbiting the sun at 67,000 mph...

while we orbit the milky way galaxy at 483,000 mph...

are you dizzy yet?

Happy 367th Birthday Sir Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton (4 January 1643 – 31 March 1727) was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian who is perceived and considered by a substantial number of scholars and the general public as one of the most influential scientists in history.

His 1687 publication of the Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually called the Principia) is considered to be among the most influential books in the history of science, laying the groundwork for most of classical mechanics. In this work, Newton described universal gravitation and the three laws of motion which dominated the scientific view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.

Newton showed that the motions of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies are governed by the same set of natural laws by demonstrating the consistency between Kepler's laws of planetary motion and his theory of gravitation, thus removing the last doubts about heliocentrism and advancing the scientific revolution.

"I do not know what I may appear to the world,

but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy

playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself

in now and then finding a smoother pebble

or a prettier shell than ordinary,

whilst the great ocean of truth

lay all undiscovered before me."

Sir Isaac Newton


(read more)

Yin Yang

The Yin/Yang symbol is derived from the movement of the earth relative to the sun. When observing the cycle of the Sun, ancient Chinese used a pole posted at a right angle to the ground and recorded positions of the shadow. They divided the year's cycle into a circle 24 Segments of about 15 days, and used six concentric circles, and recorded the length of shadow.

Beginning at the summer Solstice when the shadow was shortest and yin begins and then every 15 days, they plotted the shadow length from the outside of the circle inward until winter Solstice when the shadow was longest and Yang begins. Then they then began plotting the length from the center of the circle outward until the summer Solstice. This is because they believe the Chi energy changes directions right after the Solstice. When they connected all the measurements it resulted in the creation the familiar pattern of the Yin Yang. The Yin Yang would be the opposite color scheme if we were to record them from the southern hemisphere and this pattern would be less dramatic if one were to measure it on the equator. (link) (link)