[HN Gopher] Zooming into the Sun with Solar Orbiter
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Zooming into the Sun with Solar Orbiter
Author : mhb
Score : 67 points
Date : 2022-04-04 18:14 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.esa.int)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.esa.int)
| drunksun wrote:
| shmde wrote:
| I didn't expect it to be this lackluster and ugly.
| danrochman wrote:
| Are you my mother?
| dEnigma wrote:
| Interesting. I'm looking at the same image and find it
| stunningly beautiful. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.
| mttjj wrote:
| Easy to miss: Earth to scale in the top right of the photo.
|
| And to think there are stars in our galaxy that would dwarf our
| Sun to the same degree! Pale Blue Dot indeed...
| svnpenn wrote:
| That blog has one of my favorite posts:
|
| https://kottke.org/17/05/the-struggle-with-the-self
| emptybits wrote:
| "a mosaic of 25 individual images is needed to cover the entire
| Sun. Taken one after the other, the full image was captured over
| a period of more than four hours because each tile takes about 10
| minutes"
|
| I would love to hear a bit about how movement captured across
| tile boundaries over the course of four hours was handled when
| stitching the pano. AI and/or human retouching could be involved
| which, IMO, are both acceptable to get such an amazing image.
| Just curious!
| adzm wrote:
| I really love the compilations by Sean Doran of our Sun --
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FI0oVK4Pa44 for example. Perfect
| ambient background video.
| danparsonson wrote:
| Original here:
| https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/03/The_Sun_in...
| dang wrote:
| We changed the URL from https://kottke.org/22/04/the-highest-
| resolution-photo-of-the..., which points to this.
| pb060 wrote:
| You can see the Human Torch on the top left.
| web007 wrote:
| I can't believe that this is the highest-resolution photo of the
| sun that ESA has taken. Surely earth-based telescopes have done
| better?
|
| A guy in his backyard takes pictures with similar resolution:
| https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy/status/147297870519032217...
| (downscaled for Twitter, approx 9Kx9K / 81Mpix on his Patreon
| feed)
| brunosan wrote:
| The part that is confusing is highest resolution (1) full-disk
| and (2) outer atmosphere: (1) "Full-disk" is clear to
| understand: the higher the resolution, ^2 the work to make it
| also full-disk (especially when the Sun rotates differentially
| and evolves in high-cadence, so you gotta be fast. (2) "Outer
| atmosphere" is also tricky as only few wavelengths see the
| outer atmosphere. The vast majority of the light comes from the
| "surface" or photosphere (hence the name). In this case
| surface, the highest resolution is roughly 0.05 arcsec or
| 50km/pixel. But to see the outer parts, you have to do to
| emission of elements like Iron that only emit when highly
| ionized and super high temperatures (those are the special
| characteristics of the sun's outer atmosphere... yes, it's way
| hotter than the surface, just WAY less dense). Those emissions
| happen in the Ultraviolet, 17 nanometers, like the caption
| says. That's like 50 times smaller wavelength. Angular
| resolution is proportional to wavelength
| (1.22*wavelength/Diameter) which is on the order of 1000
| km/pixel (but linear resolution makes less sense since the
| atmosphere is such a 3D shape... it's better to say 1 arcsec of
| resolution).
|
| I might be too biased (I'm a solar physicist) but the
| explanation above makes the image way cooler and they should
| have added it): The most detailed image of the Sun's metal
| corona :D
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Make sure to look at the high resolution 50+ MB image and zoom
| in.
| gbear605 wrote:
| You can take an arbitrarily high pixel count photo of anything
| with enough cameras side by side. But this is exciting (to
| scientists) because it's taking the photos in specific
| wavelength and outside of the Earth's atmosphere.
| adrianwaj wrote:
| If only there was a way to safely and economically send Earth's
| garbage into it!
| drcongo wrote:
| You mean humans?
| [deleted]
| Ourgon wrote:
| How edgy. You first, m'kay? Together with the telephone
| cleaners, middle managers etc. Don't wait for us, we need
| clean telephones when we arrive.
| bdamm wrote:
| It would be easier to send the garbage to the moon, Mars, or
| even Jupiter. With enough Delta-V we could atomize garbage on
| impact to the moon.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Couldn't we just aim something in the right direction, give
| it a little thrust, and then forget about it? There's no rush
| after it has left earth.
| jrapdx3 wrote:
| Don't know, but I don't think we'd want mountains of trash
| (whatever its composition) to wind up orbiting Earth. AFAIK
| a lot of energy/thrust/velocity is necessary to escape
| Earth gravity altogether. I'd guess launching stuff into
| deep space is expensive. Considering how much trash humans
| generate, well, space disposal isn't practical.
|
| Besides "trash" could be a useful resource. To some extent
| it's already done. Some is convertible to energy. Other
| fractions (plastics, metals) recycled to make new stuff,
| etc. Could these uses be extended? I can't say, but more
| R&D is likely a better investment vs. rocketing trash away.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| > AFAIK a lot of energy/thrust/velocity is necessary to
| escape Earth gravity altogether.
|
| I was responding to the claim that it would be easier to
| send trash to Jupiter, etc. than the sun. Yes, escaping
| Earth's gravity in the first place would be a major
| expense.
|
| > I don't think we'd want mountains of trash (whatever
| its composition) to wind up orbiting Earth.
|
| While I probably agree, there is a lot more room up there
| than down here!
| Ourgon wrote:
| If you can atomize garbage it'd be useful as reaction mass
| for some space transport - one step closer to _Mr. Fusion_
| from Back to the Future.
| ghastmaster wrote:
| It is a mosaic with 25 images captured over the course of 4
| hours.
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(page generated 2022-04-04 23:00 UTC)