NASA's SDO's 5-year footage highlights - WOW! -- ToeClaws' Journal -- Fur Affinity [dot] net

NASA's SDO's 5-year footage highlights - WOW!

10 years ago

Thank you to all for the Watches, Favourites and great comments!

Okay... I should say this right off the bat, I LOVE science, especially when it comes to space. This video is just breath-taking; it's a combination of footage taken during the last 5 years of the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) mission. It puts every movie special effects shot to shame 'cause this is the real Sol - our star - doing it's thing:

http://youtu.be/GSVv40M2aks

That we have footage like this, to me, is just amazing. I'm not enormously old or anything, but when I was a kid, we were just starting to learn how incredible the solar system looked. Voyager 1 and 2 had sent back pictures of Jupiter and Saturn for the first time, and I remember waiting anxiously to see pictures of Uranus and Neptune. There was no Hubble yet, and they also didn't know back in those days how to clear up Earth-based telescope pictures.

Today we have multiple systems observing the Sun, we have probes in orbit around Venus, Mercury, Mars and Saturn. We have rovers on mars and even probes that have landed on comets and far off moons like Titan. And whisking through the asteroid belt is Dawn - powered by Ion Drive, heading for the dwarf planet Ceres (after having visited Vesta). And soon the New Horizons probe will arrive at Pluto. On top of that, we have discovered not just some, but thousands of other planets out there.

We've gone from the blurry, black and white speckled pictures of when I was a kid, wondering if there were other planets in the universe to so many beautiful images and knowledge that planets are the norm, not the exception. And we have a goddamn space station! :D

Other amazing videos:

Dark Side of the Moon: http://youtu.be/jdkMHkF7BaA (which also happens to be an AWESOME album)
Evolution of the Moon: http://youtu.be/UIKmSQqp8wY
View from the Space Station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FG0fTKAqZ5g
Size of Stuff out there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEheh1BH34Q

If you got some cool videos of stuff like that, please share'em!

Also... for SciFi fans among you, good news! Star Trek Continues has more than doubled it's second Kickstarter goal for more episodes, WOO!

http://www.startrekcontinues.com/

11 Comments

CarinaFox7 ~carinafox7

Watcher

10 years ago

Good to see another astronomy fan! ^_^ That video of the sun is absolutely breathtaking. I'm so excited for more data from the Dawn and New Horizons probes... the newest pictures of Ceres are so clear!

ToeClaws ~toeclaws

Writer

10 years ago

*nodsnods* Yes! It's just amazing to watch it all unfold as it has been. Even things like asteroids and Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs). When I as born in the 1970s, they knew of about 30 to 40 NEAs - as of a couple days ago, that number is 12,160! We're discovering every day that it is WAY busier out there than we ever could have imagined. :)

CarinaFox7 ~carinafox7

Watcher

10 years ago

We've found so much even since I was born in 1990! I never imagined we'd find oceans on Titan, more objects just like Pluto, a host of extrasolar planets, etc. We've come so far in such a short time ^_^

ToeClaws ~toeclaws

Writer

10 years ago

Aye that's true - a huge amount of the discoveries have come only in the last 20 years. Heck - and not just oceans on Titan; we landed on it: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag.....ature_250.html

So cool. I remember pouring over the amazing pictures of Jupiter and Saturn (and their moons) that had found their way to Encyclopedias around 1985 when my interest in all this stuff had sparked. I remember waiting impatiently for the yearly "update" science book in 1986 to see the images of Uranus and it's moons. Then again in 1989 for the images of Neptune (which was amazing). Prior to that time, the only picture of either looks like stars from Earth. Really amazing stuff. I really hope they're going to keep going with all the deep space probe stuff.

doraneirok ~doraneirok

Increasingly feathered dragon

10 years ago

Yay for space geekery! :) I get really passionate about this sort of stuff too, there's so much out there that's so breathtakingly beautiful and awe-inspiring, and only becomes moreso the more you learn about it. Thanks for sharing these!

Since you asked, a couple contributions that I've found particularly fascinating of beautiful:

Astronaut Chris Hadfield shows off the bizarre physics of wringing out a wet towel in zero gravity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsHASky85cI

And the view from a camera on one of the booster rockets during a space shuttle launch, eventually detaching and splashing down to Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aC.....ZCDUbSH37TreXw

For some reason footage like this really excites me, I just always think it's such an amazing thing to see. I guess because of how much I'd love to be able to actually ride a ship into space and see those sorts of sights with my own eyes. :)

ToeClaws ~toeclaws

Writer

10 years ago

Eee! Yes! I've seen both of those before (being Canadian and all, Chris Hadfield is like a household name here now). Same here - footage like that is just SO so cool. I don't know if you've seen this year, but this is an awesome inspirational talk from Chris Hadfield on "What's the worst thing that's happened to you?"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo62S0ulqhA

And for more yay-Canada plugs, Chris singing about Canada: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuVsHt3rBnc

doraneirok ~doraneirok

Increasingly feathered dragon

10 years ago

I figured he would be pretty well-known up in your parts. ;D Thanks for the additional links! Those are both really cool. The TED talk is really neat and covers interesting things, and it's always fun hearing him sing. XD He is such a cool guy. And the Canada song is wonderful!

ToeClaws ~toeclaws

Writer

10 years ago

Yeah, gods - I can't think of a better representative of Canada than Commander Hadfield. We're a nation that's immensely proud of him. Here's a cool 2015 pep-talk he did that I think you'll enjoy too:

http://www.wimp.com/astronauttalk/

doraneirok ~doraneirok

Increasingly feathered dragon

10 years ago

He really is a fantastic person. :) And yeah in such a uniquely Canadian way it seems. Well worth being proud of, and neat to have someone like that you can all rally behind. I hadn't seen that video, thanks for sharing! Definitely the sorta message I can eagerly get behind.

AlphaZion ~alphazion

Watcher

10 years ago

Whenver someone says they love science I think of this http://explosm.net/comics/3557 :P

Seriously though that is really awesome @.@ and yay for more Trek!!!

ToeClaws ~toeclaws

Writer

10 years ago

LOL!!! That's so true. I love the boring bits too. I can make people's eyes glaze over with the boring stuff, but to me it's all part of the big bunch of amazing that science is. XD

And YAR! Star Trek! Love Star Trek - at least, until Star Trek VI. Started going downhill after that. XD

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