Solar flares documentation video

Let's learn something about solar flares today.

Thanks and credits to NASA and SpaceRip for this!

Extreme Solar Flares

Link & HD video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmDZhQAIeXM

Video description:
"From NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Solar flares may seem like far-away events, but they can damage satellites and even ground-based technologies and power grids. Every 11 years, as the sun reaches its maximum activity they become bigger and more common, and that increases the chances that one will significantly affect Earth.

So what are these solar eruptions? A solar flare is basically an explosion on the surface of the sun ranging from minutes to hours in length. Large flares can release enough energy to power the entire United States for a million years. Flares happen when the powerful magnetic fields in and around the sun reconnect. They're usually associated with active regions, often seen as sunspots, where the magnetic fields are strongest.

Flares are classified according to their strength. The smallest ones are B-class, followed by C, M and X, the largest. Similar to the Richter scale for earthquakes, each letter represents a ten-fold increase in energy output. So an X is 10 times an M and 100 times a C. Within each letter class, there is a finer scale from 1 to 9. C-class flares are too weak to noticeably affect Earth.

M-class flares can cause brief radio blackouts at the poles and minor radiation storms that might endanger astronauts. It's the X-class flares that are the real juggernauts. Although X is the last letter, there are flares more than 10 times the power of an X1, so X-class flares can go higher than 9. The most powerful flare on record was in 2003, during the last solar maximum. It was so powerful that it overloaded the sensors measuring it. They cut out at X17, and the flare was later estimated to be about X45.

A powerful X-class flare like that can create long lasting radiation storms, which can harm satellites, and even give airline passengers flying near the poles small radiation doses. X flares also have the potential to create global transmission problems and worldwide blackouts.

The seriousness of an X-class flare pointed at Earth is why NASA and NOAA constantly monitor the sun. NASA's Heliophysics fleet of spacecraft can now see the sun from every side and in many different wavelengths. This unprecedented coverage is enabling scientists to predict and detect space weather events like flares and CMEs with ever greater accuracy. With advance warning, governments and companies can take steps to protect their technological infrastructure, so that the worst scenarios will never happen."

Liquid flowing water discovered on Mars

Could we take a bath once we managed to land a manned capsule on Mars? Recent observations show evidence for possible liquid water on the planetary surface. Now thath probably comes quite unexpected and might be another indicator life could exist somewhere on Mars.

Water Flows Discovered on Mars

Link & HD version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBam6B9wrdI

Article by NASA:

Warm-Season Flows on Slope in Martian Newton Crater
This series of images shows warm-season features that might be evidence of salty liquid water active on Mars today. Evidence for that possible interpretation is presented in a report by McEwen et al. in the Aug. 5, 2011, edition of Science.

These images come from observations of Newton crater, at 41.6 degrees south latitude, 202.3 degrees east longitude, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In time, the series spans from early spring of one Mars year to mid-summer of the following year. The images have been adjusted to correct those taken from oblique angles to show how the scene would look from directly overhead.

The features that extend down the slope during warm seasons are called recurring slope lineae. They are narrow (one-half to five yards or meters wide), relatively dark markings on steep (25 to 40 degree) slopes at several southern hemisphere locations. Repeat imaging by HiRISE shows the features appear and incrementally grow during warm seasons and fade in cold seasons. They extend downslope from bedrock outcrops, often associated with small channels, and hundreds of them form in rare locations. They appear and lengthen in the southern spring and summer from 48 degrees to 32 degrees south latitudes favoring equator-facing slopes. These times and places have peak surface temperatures from about 10 degrees below zero Fahrenheit to 80 degree above zero Fahrenheit (about 250 to 300 Kelvin). Liquid brines near the surface might explain this activity, but the exact mechanism and source of the water are not understood.

The series is timed to dwell two seconds on the first and last frames and one second on intermediate frames, though network or computer performance may cause this to vary.


This image combining orbital imagery with 3-D modeling shows flows that appear in spring and summer on a slope inside Mars' Newton crater. Source: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona / space.com / Full resolution

Other imagery related to these new findings from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/MRO/multimedia/gallery/gallery-index.html.

The legend on each image gives the exact HiRISE observation number (e.g. ESP_011428_1380 for the first image) so that additional image products from the observation and information about the observation can be found on the HiRISE website (e.g., the first image of the series is from ESP_011428_1380, at http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_011428_1380).

The legend also marks the Mars year and seasonal identifier (Ls) for each image. The Mars years begin with the first years of Mars exploration by robot spacecraft. This sequence includes images from Mars Year 29 and Mars Year 30. Ls stands for longitude of the sun, dividing the year into 360 degrees to mark the seasons. Ls = 180 is the beginning of southern spring, Ls = 270 is the beginning of southern summer, and Ls = 360 (or 0) is the beginning of southern autumn.

HiRISE is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, built the spacecraft.


Source: nasa.gov

Biggest stars & black holes in our universe

Now let's once again contemplate about our place in the universe. We're small. Tiny midgets in the vastness of space. But still, we're able to go out of our cosmic jail here on Earth, to reach for the stars and discover new worlds never imagined before. Open your mind for the size of space:

The Biggest Stars In The Universe

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bcz4vGvoxQA

Cosmic Journeys: The Largest Black Holes in the Universe


Definitely watch in HD: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW7BvabYnn8

Envision your place in the universe

For the beginning, I'd like to make you realize, how small we actually are. The vastness of our universe is almost impossible to comprehend for a human's mind. 
The Milky Way, our home galaxy, consists of an estimated number of around 400 billion stars alone. Now imagine many of them having planets (estimations are ~ 50 billion) - and those having moons! And that's just our galaxy, there are billions of other ones, in some way it can be seen as an infinite number. How many life forms, how many civilizations might evolve in such an endless sea that forms the space above our heads?
This graphic is a scale comparison of our sun to the planets of the solar system, amended by some interesting facts. 1.3 million Earths fit into our Sun! Which is a yellow dwarf star - there are way bigger stars out there in space.

Click the image for full resolution!
Source: http://waynedorrington.blogspot.com/2011/02/infographic-no2-sun.html

And this video shows you how size is all relative - making our Earth and the sun look like tiny mites!

(You can watch it in HD by clicking the video to open the YouTube page.)