Even the solar intertubes are on fire today.

[seafan]

If there ever were a cosmic illustration of interrupted, surging chaos, this epitomizes Election Day 2010.


November 2, 2010






Spicules: Jets on the Sun

Credit: K. Reardon (Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, INAF) IBIS, DST, NSO

Explanation: Imagine a pipe as wide as a state and as long as the Earth. Now imagine that this pipe is filled with hot gas moving 50,000 kilometers per hour. Further imagine that this pipe is not made of metal but a transparent magnetic field. You are envisioning just one of thousands of young spicules on the active Sun. Pictured above is one of the highest resolution image yet of these enigmatic solar flux tubes. Spicules line the above frame of solar active region 11092 that crossed the Sun last month, but are particularly evident converging on the sunspot on the lower left. Time-sequenced images have recently shown that spicules last about five minutes, starting out as tall tubes of rapidly rising gas but eventually fading as the gas peaks and falls back down to the Sun. What determines the creation and dynamics of spicules remains a topic of active research.

As you were.


:)

[ChairmanAgnostic]

1. W O W

thanks

[Ikonoklast]

2. I wonder what the density of the plasma moving through those spicules is.

Has to be millions of tonnes of matter.