Dazzling new images reveal the 'impossible' on the Sun

[BellisimaJ.]

Fascinating article regarding new discoveries about the sun.............

Dazzling new images reveal the 'impossible' on the Sun

The restless bubbling and frothing of the Sun's chaotic surface is astonishing astronomers who have been treated to detailed new images from a Japanese space telescope called Hinode.

The observatory will have as dramatic an impact on our understanding of the Sun as the Hubble Space Telescope has had on our view of the universe beyond, scientists told a NASA press conference in Washington, DC, US, on Wednesday.

"Everything we thought we knew about X-ray images of the Sun is now out of date," says Leon Golub from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. "We've seen many new and unexpected things. For that reason alone, the mission is already a success."

Hinode (Japanese for "sunrise") was launched in September 2006 to study the solar magnetic field and how magnetic energy is released as the field rises into the Sun's outer atmosphere. The mission was formerly known as Solar-B.

Continue reading article.....

Charged particles follow magnetic field lines that rise vertically from a sunspot – an area of strong magnetic field. On the edges of the sunspot, the magnetic field lines bend over to connect to regions of the opposite polarity (Image: Hinode JAXA/NASA)

[accentnepal]

There is a lot we do not understand about the sun (and so many other things). Seems I remember hearing that the Fusion reactions taking place can really only account for a small part of the heat of the sun. Art Bell  stuff. Richard Hoagland thinks the rest comes from other dimensions.

But get this - and this is conventional science: Every atom in our world except the hydrogen was fused in a star somewhere, sometime. We are all built literally of Stardust. Thats as Woo-Woo as it can get, if you think about it.

[BellisimaJ.]

I used to watch Carl Sagan religiously. Our world is so fascinating, and yet we really know so very little about it. I think I would probably be willing to give up the next 20 or so years of my life if I were able to learn about all the mysteries of the universe. (where science is concerned, time travel, black holes, etc., are my fav topics to obsess about--I would    to go back a 100 years )

But get this - and this is conventional science: Every atom in our world except the hydrogen was fused in a star somewhere, sometime. We are all built literally of Stardust. Thats as Woo-Woo as it can get, if you think about it.

Very weird when you think about it   ......also romantic.  

Writing a song now, "He/She is stardust and......" 

[accentnepal]

I love the edge - where the known falls away precipitously. Of course to get there reliably you have to follow what is known. But I love the gaps --- By the way, professor, what about ....

Like that 13 acre pile of stone west of Cairo Egypt (Great Pyramid), built to the incredible tolerances of 1/100 of an inch over it's surface and passages. Professor says it was built at the beginnings of civilization.  Professor cannot explain how.

But the scientists are usually not that dumb. They just do not like to look over the edge. They now have about a dozen meteorites they are convinced come from Mars. Apparently when a big meteor hits Mars a bunch of Mars rocks can be thrown into space with enough force to get to Earth. They know they are from Mars because of their isotope ratios.

Anyway, science knows rocks can get here from Mars, and, although Earth's gravity is stronger, it is possible that Earth rocks can get to Mars. 
Some bacteria are pretty tough. Some spores are really really tough. So through out the last 5 billion years little bits of life probably have been hitchhiking back and forth among the planets. Science stops at the rocks, I like to take it further.

But I like to believe in Magic.
Which is just science that we don't know yet.