Comments on: Rain on the Sun

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:37:38 +0000

@ 8. Tony Mach & 9. Walter Merino : Aha! Got it now. Cheers for that.

By: Lenny V

Lenny V — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:35:33 +0000

Hey Mr. Bad Astronomer, Sir…

Regarding gravity and the sun, just how far away from said galactical body would a person have to be to experience earth-equivalent/1G gravity?

Would be interesting to know, on a purely Trivial Pursuit level of knowledge of course, but interesting the same.

By: Dumb Al

Dumb Al — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:49:05 +0000

You got a lot of questions asking why stuff falls into the sun? People with interest in the Universe are supposed to already know about gravity. Never mind all the deeply esoteric ideas like escape velocity and such. One just needs to know that matter is attracted to matter and a big blob of matter attracts strongly.

By: Walter Merino

Walter Merino — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:01:41 +0000

Awesome clip… And the clock helps us have an idea of the real time. Almost 4 actual hours past in 19 secs of video. So, each second of the video is about 12.6 real minutes.

By: Tony Mach

Tony Mach — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 12:46:29 +0000

@Messier Tidy Upper
The clock is most definitely hours:minutes:seconds UTC, the video runs from 16:20:11 to 20:14:15 on 16-Apr-2012.

So this stuff can fly for dozens of minutes through the solar atmosphere! A scale would be nice, though.

By: Sanjay

Sanjay — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 05:40:59 +0000

Beautiful! For the millionth time, I’m wondering why there’s no ‘slow-mo’ or ‘loop’ buttons on YouTube.
And videos like this almost make me sad that there’s no sound in space

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 04:35:19 +0000

Gives a whole new meaning to the sunshower phenomenon!

(Y’know, when its raining but its still sunny, usually.)

@2. T-storm : That took a lot less than 6,000 years, mate!

Actually I’m not sure even with the clock at the bottom of the clip whether that’s real time – so just seconds – or time lapse hence many hours.

@1. Chris : Not quite sure what the scale there is either – a line showing 1 AU might be a good addition to this clip too.

It’s pretty neat just as it is mind you, I’m not complaining.

By: flip

flip — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 03:55:14 +0000

I could watch that a million times over! It’s kind of like watching an extra slow-motion film of a balloon full of water being popped. (Only bigger and not so much with the water)

By: Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:32:37 +0000

This is the difference between NASA and other space agencies, especially JAXA and ESA which have completely abysmal to nonexistent public outreach efforts. How many years has Hinode been on orbit, 6, 7? I see maybe two other videos out there from this device. How many pictures have you seen from the ESA Venus orbiter? One? Maybe? Did you even know it existed? Compare this to something like SDO where I can literally stream live data to my phone with a free app.

By: James Evans

James Evans — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:17:03 +0000

so you can see graceful arcs of this stuff falling back down

Yeah, it’s so, well, beautiful, it almost takes on a surreal quality like you couldn’t possibly be watching the real thing, but instead are looking at a really well-done, yet slightly embellished animation or simulation.