Speckles on the Sun larger than Alaska

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Honestly, I’m amazed that they’re that small. I always think of the sun as inconceivably larger than the Earth.

Here’s the Earth and a solar flare, from NASA:

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I can see solar granules from my house!

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That scale marker is… confusing… I guess they’re saying each black or white stripe is 1000km, but it makes it look like they think the entire line is 1000km, which is obviously crazy.

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Brilliant Noise from Semiconductor on Vimeo.

Alan Friedman’s backyard sun shots seem to show some of this structure:

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More windblown wheat than nuclear furnace. I’m amazed at all the sun’s personalities revealed across the EM spectrum. Still takes some effort to appreciate the scale of it all.

And now I feel insignificant…

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I suspect that the guy just takes photos of a moldy peach and then shops them until he gets some that look about right…

It helps if you remember that the USA is about 3000 miles wide. 1000 km = 620 miles. The ruler is 4200 miles total.

“the same way that colder, denser water sinks in the ocean or hot goo rises to the top of a lava lamp”

Some people never really leave home. That leads to a lot of silliness when trying to interpret things that don’t happen around home. Almost everything we think we know about the universe suffers from this myopic tendency. For one thing there are electric currents in space, and scientists flatly refuse to consider such effects. They admit that the northern lights are caused by electrically charged particles, but they persist in calling that a wind. They deny that electricity has any effect except in equipment specifically designed to use it.

Oh great, now I’m thinking of giant moldy peaches and possibly the worst sequel never written (you’re welcome, Roald Dahl).

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Yes, those parochial astronomers who discuss mundane things like quasars and degenerate matter, but we can only assume were too short-sighted to consider things that don’t happen around home like electric currents. Surely they are pissing us off and telling us lies. :unamused:

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Time-lapse! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-UjQwTfjGg

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