Another cloud free day in Scotland let me catch almost 9 hours of this huge and lively prom. Taken with my home made 90mm modded Coronado PST and DMK21 camera. Software: CdC, Eqmod, DSSR, AutoStakkert!, Wavesharp, DVS, Shotcut and Gimp.

David Wilson on April 8, 2025 @ Inverness, Scotland

https://spaceweathergallery2.com/indiv_upload.php?upload_id=221951

  • 1luv8008135@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    So dumb question, but what’s causing the gap between the plasma cloud(?) and the surface? And is that gap filled with something that is invisible?

    • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      The dynamics there due to sheer gravity, magnetism and levels of energy/radiation that are utterly alien to our daily experience.

          • niktemadur@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            This is the mechanism that makes Cepheid stars regularly and predictably change intensity

            Doesn’t it also make the Cepheid noticeably swell (then deflate) in circumference? Or does it maintain the same basic size, and it’s just storing magnetic bubbles of hot plasma like a halo, before bursting and releasing all that accumulated material?

    • MysteriousSophon21@lemmy.world
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      13 days ago

      That gap is actually magnetic field lines suspending the plasma above the surface - its like the plasma is “riding” along magnetic highways in the sun’s atmosphere, and the space between isnt empty but filled with less dense solar atmosphere thats invisible at this wavelenght.

    • crapwittyname@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      Plasma is electrically charged, so it interacts with magnetic lines.
      The sun has magnetic field lines just as the earth does. It also rotates. But- since it’s not solid, it doesn’t have to rotate all at the same speed. The plasma in fast-rotating regions drags the field lines further than the plasma in slow rotating areas, creating weird loops, breaks and reconnections in the field lines. I’m almost certain that what we’re seeing in this lovely bit of photography is a cloud of plasma travelling across, or trapped by one of those rogue field lines which has been pushed upwards from the surface by differential rotation.

      • Schmoo@slrpnk.net
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        3 months ago

        They might have soaked fabric or some other material in animal fat (which is just oil that’s solid at room temperature), wrapped it around the end of a stick, and lit it on fire. 🤓🤓

        • Bezier@suppo.fi
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          3 months ago

          Haven’t seen a solar panel that can take a cloud of plasma many times the size of earth.

        • BaroqueInMind@lemmy.one
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          3 months ago

          The most efficient, a NASA solar panel that cost tens of thousands of dollars and uses fucking gold foil, is only 13% efficient. So try again.

          • Serinus@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Modern residential solar panels are around 22-24% efficient.

            And why are you worried about the rest of that energy? You worried it’s gonna be lost?

          • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            3 months ago

            Who said you need to catch all of it in a single panel??

            The reason nasa goes overboard (though, not really), is because it’s worth it for space stuff. On the surface we have an abundance of space

            • SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              3 months ago

              That’s actually not the worst. It seems doable to produce that much square area of solar panels, even for a civilization like us. We need about 500 000 square kilometers of solar panels on the Earth’s surface to power our global electrical needs. This is within the realm of possibility

              The more tricky part is to actually position it around the sun, that part is what makes it impossible for our current tech level and space infrastructure

              • Flemmy@lemm.ee
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                3 months ago

                Yeah the possibilities of a solar field on the moon is much more sensible.

      • Ledericas@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        tng dyson sphere, except the star end up killing or causing the civilization to abandon the sphere.

      • adr1an@programming.dev
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        3 months ago

        Corn has been doing that. We only need to wait for the oil lobby to die and then science will probably figure things out…

    • Texas_Hangover@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      Well I can’t ram the sun up the ass of my Silverado. Although if I outlive that thing, I’m replacing it with a horse or something. New vehicles freak me out man.

      • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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        3 months ago

        Come on tell tech daddy where you go on weekdays & weekends for how long at what speed with how many passengers!

  • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Look at this and tell me life couldn’t evolve on the Sun, that is a stable structure with reputation patterns, this alone is enough to make Conway’s game of Life

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Life as we know it could not “evolve” on the sun. And technically life has to be present first before it can evolve. Evolution isn’t what created life. It’s just how the living change over time.

      • trotfox@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        A gaseous cloud in space the size of 7 suns may have the ability to flow right past us, but also, think.

      • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Obviously plasma beings would be nothing like us at least physically (theoretically it could have similar systems like nervous systems)

        And as for life having to exist first, ehh, terms get vague at that point, are the chemicals alive? No, but when they happen to be in a certain state they are, I prefer to think of it like Rocks evolve into a planet, not the same thing as biological evolution but it’s the same word and since the chemicals are the predecessor to life then they did evolve from them in that manner just no genetics involved

        • meco03211@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Except you don’t just get to conflate your personal definition of evolution with the scientific one. If you want to believe rocks “evolve” into a planet, that’s fine. But if you start bringing that up without clarifying your definition of evolution and how it factually differs from the scientific one, people will think you’re crazy.

          • stupidcasey@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            Except chemicals do literally evolve into life which evolve into DNA, it is a fuzzy point because DNA didn’t exist yet, but it is still natural selection and random chance that leads to the first life form, I am deliberately conflating biological evolution with the more main stream definition because at that point in time biology physics and chemistry were all physically conflated.

            • meco03211@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              This is entirely incorrect. Abiogenesis is the mechanism that converts “chemicals” to life. The only thing you are deliberately doing is stating factually incorrect concepts about an intensely deep and developed area of study. The “more mainstream definition” is just wrong.

        • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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          3 months ago

          Sounds like the kind of thing a self-modifying plasma field living inside a nova remnant would say, on the internets.

          • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            No indeed, fellow carbon-having being! I am truly an human, that does many humanish things like laughing and farting, sometimes both at once! akakakakak!

            It is silly to think that anything as beautiful and majestic as a self-modifying EM field could exist, I mean such a being would be perfection right? Basically a glowing radiant god yes? Oh my I truly wish I was a free-flying energyform of psychically controlled vortexes of pure creation, instead of this little crunchy salt water sack that we humans are always being.

            No, I truly love this cold little rocky world where matter can exist in other simpler forms than vibrating and glorious plasma.

    • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They were born in the early days of all things, when even space burned with white hot fire

      They persisted, EM fields feeding their core the kaleidoscope soup of nameless plasma and shattered atom hearts and over strange aeons began to learn to shape the fields that fed and flew them

      In time as the particle sea began to cool, they found refuge in brief stars larger than solar systems, cavorting and chasing in the balmy updrafts so hot that even helium burns

      Now in this cold distant future, where stars are but unreachable cinders, they scrimp and conserve the relatively little time our sun has left to them, some two billion short years hence.

      Pray for our star children, we cannot grasp even a fraction of the cosmic empire they have lost

      • reptar@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        we cannot grasp even a fraction of the cosmic empire they have lost

        I just finished the last book in The Expanse. This really made me think of the gate builders

        E: I should have also said, loved your post!

        • Angry_Autist (he/him)@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Thank you, it’s been a really low week and knowing you liked my post has been healing for me these two days.

          Not enough people engage on lemmy yet and I wanted to be sure you knew that your comment meant a lot to me. I love to write but rarely get any feedback on it.

  • gcheliotis@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Absolutely amazing that you could capture that with “amateur” equipment, although it is clear from your post that a lot went into this. Bravo!

  • trotfox@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    It’s crazy this guy is just doing this on his own. Looks like something from NASA to me.