Frankensun

Did you see Friday’s partial solar eclipse? Due to stormy weather here in the Seattle area, we thought we were only going to be able to watch it online until… the clouds briefly parted.

A window opened in the roiling sky so that we were able to see what appeared to be a bottomless black hole slowly swallowing the sun. In reality, the moon was passing between the sun and earth. At the height of the eclipse, about 3:30 P.M. Pacific time, it had clouded back up, but that otherworldly twilight caused by disturbances in the heavens hovered for a bit. The world was bathed in electrified, muted tones of premature grey.

These screen shots came from Slooh.com’s live broadcast of the event. If you don’t know Slooh, a citizen observatory, you should get acquainted. They make it easy for you to become an armchair astronomer and they frequently broadcast live events. You can sign up to receive emails notifying you of celestial events.

Note the Frankenstein-looking scars and pockmarks on the sun. The planet Jupiter could fit in the area of sunspot activity in the center. Jupiter, to put this in perspective, is as large as 1000 Earths. Giant sunspot AR2192 is the largest sunspot astronomers have witnessed in almost a quarter century. Those fissures on the sun are solar filaments, which can be hundreds of thousands of miles long. They’re basically pockets of dense, cool gas held in place by magnetic fields.

The sun has been particularly active this week, hurling both M- and X-class solar flares at our planet. You can get updates about what the sun is doing and how it affects Earth from sites like Spaceweather.com, Space.com, NASA.gov, and the Discovery News site. Spaceweather.com offers text and voice alerts so that you know what’s going on in the sky. Discovery has a great article on their front page right now, Powerful X-Class Solar Flares Hit Earth, Cause Radio Blackouts.

Jesus said to keep an eye on the heavens because it will contain signs of what’s to come. Witnessing Friday’s eclipse and the monstrous activity on Sol Solis, a G-type main-sequence (G2V) yellow dwarf, reminds me just how awesome the Creator is and how unlimited His power. No matter what’s going on, He is in control.

It also reminds me of the deliciously mad genius of Lewis Carroll…

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There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. -Luke 21:25

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©2014 H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com. All articles/posts on this blog are copyrighted original material that may not be reproduced in part or whole in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from H. Hiatt/wildninjablog.com.