- Posts tagged Sun
- Explore Sun on posterous
An Astronomical Photo-Op
A photographic 'opportunity' on another world.
A very short post today that was inspired by the magnificent photo above. Despite its mysterious, almost ghastly appearance, this is just a picture of the Sun. And while, as a photograph, it is fuzzy and of very low-resolution, it also just happens to blow my mind.
That's because this picture was taken from the surface of Mars, by a little rover called Opportunity, on March 4, 2004. The black spot you see is Deimos, Mars' smallest and outer-most moon, as it transits the solar disc. Here's a much closer photo of Deimos, taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
How Far Away is the Sun? Another Visualization.
Alright, this one's a doozy.
After the reasonable popularity of last week's scale picture that illustrated the distance between the Earth and the Moon, I just had to take things to the next logical level. Today I've reduced the scale, and increased the image size dramatically, to represent one astronomical unit (AU), or the distance between the earth and the Sun.*
Breathtaking Footage of the Sun
A while back I posted some neato, full frame images of the sun. I called that article Look Upon the Sky God, because it tickled me to think about how audacious we were as a species to look directly into the face of our cosmic begetter.
If you don't go for the whole supernatural deity idea, then you have to admit that the sun is the closest thing there is to something worth worshiping. It provides all the energy life uses to even exist*; how dare you make eye contact?
Look Upon the Sky God
Awesome Snaps of the Heavenly Hydrogen Ball
Click on any image to see larger
Have a look. G'head.
I know, I know; one of the first things we learn is not to stare at the sun. But why not? I mean, besides fried eyeballs, why shouldn't we stare longingly at the only reason we're alive at all?
My Favourite Astronomy Photos
Purty Pictures of Space and Stuff
I had to quickly modify this post because the image above just came out, as in today! Above is an image of the solar eclipse that could be seen from parts of Asia today. But look closely, do you see the second eclipse? That's right, that's the International Space Station passing in front of the Sun. Click on it to see larger. Wow.
The following is a short-list of some of my favourite photos of the heavens, taken over the course of the last few years. I was inspired to put this together from a similar post on Universe Today documenting 2010's best snaps, and indeed 3 of the images you see below are from there, but I wanted to go further to include pictures from other years.
All the images can be clicked on for a higher-resolution look, but where noted some images are much larger. (Posterous seems to limit the size an image can be so I apologize if they're still not big enough)
Enjoy!
