What the heck is going on on the sun?
 

We had quite an active period this last days, but this is something I've never seen before:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/data/

:shock:

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/..._1024_0193.jpg

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/..._1024_0211.jpg

http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/assets/img/...3_171_1024.jpg

Probably a bug. Have you tried turning it off and on again? ;)

:lol:

Damn good one. :lol: I just hope someone isn't doing just that.:-o

I was looking at the satelite images from time to time, but this huge "slice " darken out looks very strange. :confused:

Its a cryptic message from time travelers.

Raaaid might be able to interpret it with luck.

I don't know what the dark shadow is? does it say on the NASA site or do they mention if there is any concern about it?

Stunning images though.

I think the sort of time scale we are used to as Humans we'll not see much real change in the sun deteriorating during our whole existence as a species ... probably* obviously we will see periods of sunspots and solar flare activity from time to time, used to do some welding at an oil yard and someone said have a look at the sun through your welding visor, I had one of the darker shades of glass in use at the time and we could quite clearly see the sun spots that were active at the time ... this was a good way to observe the UK eclipse of 1999 as I recall too.

One sun that is due to go pop soon (ish) and maybe in our lifetimes is Betelgeuse, that would be amazing to see.

Interesting stuff.

We'd better stand by for an influx of Betelgeusian refugees.

Humm did at least someone check the telescope lens ?
;)

LOL, but that's the whole thing mate, any possible civilisation that wanted to survive beyond its home stars extinction would have long moved on before that happened if they had evolved to the technology to do so ... so they might be already on their way here or had studied our planet and thought, lets go somewhere else :)

Of course Betelgeuse might have already gone Super Nova now or a long long time ago, we wont know until its light reaches us ... if our own sun could be turned off just like that this very second we would not know for about 8 minutes and 18 seconds.

Love thinking about this stuff :cool:

A similar thing happened in 2010.

Hole in the Sun
Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA Team

Explanation: This ominous, dark shape sprawling across the face of the Sun is a coronal hole -- a low density region extending above the surface where the solar magnetic field opens freely into interplanetary space. Studied extensively from space since the 1960s in ultraviolet and x-ray light, coronal holes are known to be the source of the high-speed solar wind, atoms and electrons which flow outward along the open magnetic field lines. During periods of low activity, coronal holes typically cover regions just above the Sun's poles. But this extensive coronal hole dominated the Sun's northern hemisphere earlier this week, captured here in extreme ultraviolet light by cameras onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The solar wind streaming from this coronal hole triggered auroral displays on planet Earth.

Don't the images just show the sun under different spectrums rather than a cycle/ at different times?

Whatever they show it's very interesting, thanks for sharing.