NuSTAR Takes Beautiful X-ray Image of Sol

New submitter swell points out a new image release from NASA, the first taken of the Sun by its Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). It's the most sensitive shot ever taken in the high-energy X-ray range of the spectrum. Direct image link. While the sun is too bright for other telescopes such as NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, NuSTAR can safely look at it without the risk of damaging its detectors. The sun is not as bright in the higher-energy X-rays detected by NuSTAR, a factor that depends on the temperature of the sun's atmosphere. ... With NuSTAR's high-energy views, it has the potential to capture hypothesized nanoflares -- smaller versions of the sun's giant flares that erupt with charged particles and high-energy radiation. Nanoflares, should they exist, may explain why the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, is sizzling hot, a mystery called the "coronal heating problem." The corona is, on average, 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), while the surface of the sun is relatively cooler at 10,800 Fahrenheit (6,000 degrees Celsius). It is like a flame coming out of an ice cube. Nanoflares, in combination with flares, may be sources of the intense heat.

oh wow

[ihtoit]

PIA18906 just became my new wallpaper. Forget the technical stuff, that is just beautiful.

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[SpzToid]

The really trippy thing is, comets pass through it successfully. (Don't try this at home folks)

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pa... [nasa.gov]

Not exactly "pass through it"

[Anonymous Coward]

The comet passed through the sun's atmosphere / corona, but not through the sun itself. Just in case anyone is led to believe that comets are starting to take on neutrino-like properties...

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[ihtoit]

strangely, I did post a submission on this very event, alas the phase of Kim Kardashian's arse took centre stage and pushed my submission out to the realms of "not important enough science to warrant even a sideline story on Slashdot".

http://slashdot.org/submission... [slashdot.org]

Fuck you, Slashdot.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Anonymous Coward]

"Sol" is simply Latin for "Sun". It is not some official sceintific designator for our star, despite what the ghey community thinks.

I'm surprised Slashdot still referrs to the moon as "the moon", instead of the Latin, "Luna".

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[jez9999]

If we start doing major exploration of deep space we're gonna need to use less ambiguous names for the sun and moon, as other planets may have a sun and moon.

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[Anonymous Coward]

We can go back to calling them Atum and Iah again.

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[itzly]

We already have names for other stars and planets, and it's not causing any confusion.

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[oodaloop]

The point is that the sun and moon, especially the moon, are both their names and the generic name for its type (gp didn't say planet, btw). It's like Big Bird. It's fine as a name, when there's only one of him. When you go to his home town, and everyone is a big bird, you may want to find a better name. Yes, context will help. But if you're talking to a martian explorer, and he talks about sending something "to the moon", his context and your context are two different things and there is bound to be confu

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[itzly]

Not a big deal. When people say something that may be ambiguous, and the context doesn't resolve it, they'll just add more context. So, our martian explorer could say "Moon" when it's obvious what moon he's talking about, or switch to "Phobos" when there could be a chance of misinterpretation. People do this all the time.

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[oodaloop]

Yeah, we do. And you know what else we do all the time? Come up with new words when we're tired of being pointlessly confused with ambiguous words. Otherwise, we'd spend all day saying pass me the thingy thing, you know the thing by other thing, no the other thing.

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[MillionthMonkey]

If we start doing major exploration of deep space we're gonna need to use less ambiguous names for the sun and moon, as other planets may have a sun and moon.

We will never do major exploration of deep space where we get closer to another star than to this one. If we do, humanity can define two constants in file headers.

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[geekmux]

"Sol" is simply Latin for "Sun". It is not some official sceintific designator for our star, despite what the ghey community thinks.

I'm surprised Slashdot still referrs to the moon as "the moon", instead of the Latin, "Luna".

Yeah, really.

I mean, just how dumb would we have to be to start using Latin to designate official scientific designa...what's that? The medical community you say? And the entire animal kingdom? Botany too?

Well, yeah, I do know where we got the word science from. Gee, it's like there's some kind of weird pattern here that some Homo sapien created a long time ago...

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[geekmux]

Just because everyone does it, doesn't mean it's not stupid.

Probably the best argument for the metric system ever.

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[Anonymous Coward]

t using Latin to designate official scientific designa...what's that?

But being in Latin doesn't make it "official", even if a lot of official names are in Latin (or Greek, or German in physics). Notice the original NASA article doesn't use the name at all. Or more relevant, the name is rarely used in astronomy and astrophysics journals, especially ones that try to enforce any consistency in nomenclature. Sol and Luna usage comes from science fiction, not from regular use in science literature. Maybe some day that will change, but for now, astronomy uses whatever "the Sun

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[CrankyFool]

The animal kingdom does not use Latin. In fact, they're generally not very talkative at all, and their scientific exploration is TERRIBLE.

F'ing apes.

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[jellomizer]

Most of the Latin terms are the scientific terminology for an object.
They chose a language for scientific terminology so you don't get it confused across languages.

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[cyberchondriac]

Sunne (or Sunna) was the OE/Germanic/Scandinavian name for the Sun (thus it's common name). Sol is the latin name for our Sun. That's why our star system is the "solar" system. It tweaks my OCD when people -especially scientists- refer to another star system as a "solar" system.
Sol /= star, it means our particular star. Though I have a feeling continued usage of it in manner will ultimately change the definition.

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[Anonymous Coward]

That's why our star system is the "solar" system.

Plenty of words drift or even start out meaning things much more general or abstract than their root components. Geyser used to refer to a very specific spring in Iceland, and now refers to any similar one regardless of location for example.

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[cyberchondriac]

But I'm stuck during the transitional phase ;)

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

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[Anonymous Coward]

NuSTAR has 4x imaging planes sensitive to the ~3keV to 78keV spectrum, each of those 4 sensors only has a resolution of 32x32 pixels (64x64 pixels combined).

Feel lucky they bothered to spend the time they did scanning as much of the sun that they did, at the resolution they did.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed--given that x-rays are not the easiest thing in the world to focus and image, that this exists at all is pretty amazing.