Offtopic: Just for fun in the sun

[Guest guest]

If you want to see a movie of the sun's visible activity for the last 4 days as

monitored by the SOHO satellite check this link out:

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c3.mpg

(The movie is under 2 MB in size and is updated in near realtime.)

Notice the whopping big flares that ejected matter from the sun in the

last 2 days toward the end of the movie. Great stuff! Also notice the

swarm of squiggles registering on the camera toward the end of the

movie. These are extremely energetic (x-ray/gamma ray) particles.

Believe it or not we are currently in a Solar Minimum, but the current

solar activity is even greater than past Solar Maximums.

Darrell