Pink Rainbow over Corio Bay, Australia
Rainbows exhibit the colors we’re all familiar with when they’re not at their highest position in the sky. As the Sun sets, rainbows arch higher and higher without much of change in color. However, once the Sun dips below the horizon, the increased path length of sunlight alters a rainbow’s appearance. Image credit: Phil Thomson; Phil’s Web site
Equinox- The Sun from Solstice to Solstice
Yesterday was an equinox, a date when day and night are equal. From now on every day until the next equinox, the night will be longer than the day in Earth’s northern hemisphere, and the day will be longer than the night in Earth’s southern hemisphere. Image credit: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)
Sunrise Analemma
An analemma is that figure-8 curve that you get when you mark the position of the Sun at the same time each day throughout the year. In this case, 17 individual images taken at 0231 UT on dates between April 2 and September 16 follow half the analemma curve, looking east toward the rising sun and the Caspian sea from the boardwalk in the port of Baku, Azerbaijan. Image credit: Tunç Tezel (TWAN)
Magnificent CME Erupts on the Sun
A long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the Sun‘s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second, held on August 31, 2012 at 4:36 p.m. EDT. Watch the video
QBotix Solar Tracking system
QBotix based in California, has designed the Solbot that runs a track alongside solar panels. As it approaches an assembly, tilts the angle of the unit towards the sun. Scroll down for video
A Taste of Solar Maximum (video)
Solar maximum or solar max is a normal period of greatest solar activity in the 11 year solar cycle of the Sun. During solar maximum, large numbers of sunspots appear. Solar maximum is still a year away. Images credit: NASA
Van Gogh Sun (video)
A new technique created by Nicholeen Viall, a solar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, depicts the 12-hour history of cooling and heating at a particular spot on the sun. The images produced are reminiscent of a van Gogh painting. Image credit: NASA
Islands in the Photosphere
Sunspots are planet-sized islands in the solar photosphere, the bright surface of the Sun, and dark because they are slightly cooler than the surrounding surface. The field of view of the image spans nearly 100,000 miles, captured in a close-up telescopic snapshot from July 11. © Alan Friedman/ avertedimagination.
Sunspots and Silhouettes
In the foreground of this stunning image, is the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, built in the late 1800s and located on the highest hill in Paris, France. Next, are thin clouds forward scattering sunlight. Finally, far in the distance and slightly buried into the Sun’s surface, are sunspots, the most prominent of which is sunspot region AR 1512 visible near the disk center. Image credit: VegaStar Carpentier
When Venus Rises with the Sun
This striking telephoto view across the Black Sea on June 6 finds Venus rising with the Sun, the planet in silhouette against a ruddy and ragged solar disk. Image cradit: Emil Ivanov
