The boiling, erupting Sun | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

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Link: The boiling, erupting Sun | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

    <a target="_blank" href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/10/28/the-boiling-erupting-sun/"><img src="https://mostlyrealstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/alanfriedman_sun_halpha.jpg" height="510" width="510" /></a>

Holy solar retinopathy! That’s the Sun?

Yup. But this is not a space-based image from some bazillion dollar observatory! This phenomenal picture was taken by astrophotographer Alan Friedman with this relatively small (but very, very nice) ’scope. He shot it on October 20th, and it shows our nearest star in the light of hydrogen, specifically what astronomers call Hα (H-alpha). I’ll get to that in a sec…

In this picture you can see sunspots, giant convection cells, and the gas that follows magnetic loops piercing the Sun’s surface. When we see them against the Sun’s surface they’re called filaments, and when they arc against the background sky on the edge of the Sun’s disk they’re called prominences.

Read more by going all clicky-clicky, it’s a great read (and an awesome blog)!

BP dispersants ‘causing sickness’ – Al Jazeera English

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Link: BP dispersants ‘causing sickness’ – Al Jazeera English

Injected with at least 4.9 million barrels of oil during the BP oil disaster of last summer, the Gulf has suffered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic dispersants, which according to chemist Bob Naman, create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. And dispersed, weathered oil continues to flow ashore daily.

The First Photograph of a Human – The Atlantic

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Link: The First Photograph of a Human – The Atlantic

In September, Krulwich posted a set of daguerreotypes taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter in Cincinnati 162 years ago, on September 24, 1848. Krulwich was celebrating the work of the George Eastman House in association with the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. Using visible-light microscopy, the George Eastman House scanned several plates depicting the Cincinnati Waterfront so that scholars could zoom in and study the never-before-seen details.