A Decade in the Sun |NASA

A Decade in the Sun:



NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) satellite has been providing data on the sun's irradiance for 10 years.

quelle: #NASA #Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Fwd: Partial Eclipse |Sun

>This morning there was a partial eclipse of the Sun.

No, really.
Despite being at a convenient time for us, most people in the
UK/EU will have missed it due to a thick layer of cloud. However,
Robert Castley from Northamptonshire did catch this nice picture
of the partially eclipsed Sun rising with pylons in the foreground.
Rob got this image through cloud from near Oxford and Remko go
this one from an office window. To me though, the most impressive
pictures I've seen so far have been images taken with a 37 GHz
radio telescope at Mets;hovi Radio Observatory. Thanks to
Evan for spotting them.

The eclipse of January 4th 2011 seen at a frequency of 37 GHz with radio telescopes at the
Mets;hovi Radio Observatory, Finland CREDIT: Mets;hovi Radio Observatory

Sun |Stars

A team of astronomers led by Paul Crowther, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Sheffield, has used ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), as well as archival data from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, to study two young clusters of stars, NGC 3603 and RMC 136a in detail. NGC 3603 is a cosmic factory where stars form frantically from the nebula’s extended clouds of gas and dust, located 22 000 light-years away from the Sun (eso1005). www.eso.org

Using a combination of instruments on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, astronomers have discovered the most massive stars to date, some weighing at birth more than 300 times the mass of the Sun, or twice as much as the currently accepted limit of 150 solar masses. This artist's impression shows the relative sizes of young stars, from the smallest “red dwarfs”, weighing in at about 0.1 solar masses, through low mass “yellow dwarfs” such as the Sun, to massive “blue dwarf” stars weighing eight times more than the Sun, as well as the 300 solar mass star named R136a1.