The Midnight Sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months near the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, where the sun remains visible at the local midnight. This short, time lapse film was shot in June 2011 over 17 days and incorporates 38,000 images. The photographer/videographer traveled over 2,900 miles throughout Iceland.
Midnight Sun (SL-vimeo, via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Oct 18, 2011 -
24 comments
Solard Death Ray: Power of 5000 suns! [SLYT] The R5800: made from an ordinary fiberglass satellite dish, it is covered in about 5800 3/8" (~1cm) mirror tiles. When properly aligned, it can generate a spot the size of a dime with an intensity of 5000 suns! This amount of power is more than enough to melt steel, vaporize aluminum, boil concrete, turn dirt into lava, and obliterate any organic material in an instant. It stands at 5'9" and is 42" across.
posted by Fizz
on Jan 30, 2011 -
59 comments
Year On Earth breaks it down, explaining the complicated mechanics involved in trying to determine how long a year really is, why seasons and ice ages happen, and how not all years are created equal.
posted by loquacious
on Jul 5, 2010 -
22 comments
As the shuttle program winds down, astrophotographers like Thierry Legault are taking advantage of these last opportunities to capture absolutely incredible shots like
this one, showing Atlantis' transit in front of the sun as it performs its inspection backflip before docking with the ISS. His other photography includes
this magnificent series of the launch of
STS-125.
[more inside]
posted by disillusioned
on May 19, 2010 -
16 comments
Internet Archive - probably the single largest depository of Open Source content (and the Wayback Machine) - has transitioned its data center from racks of Linux machines to a Sun MD, basically a 3
petabyte data center housed in a liquid cooled shipping container, currently sitting in Sun's Santa Clara campus court yard. Sun and IA have put together an interesting
interactive tour of how it works and what it looks like.
[more inside]
posted by stbalbach
on Mar 25, 2009 -
37 comments
A perfect space storm, which happens about every century, like the one that occurred in
1859, could cause "catastrophic social and economic disruptions", according to
a new study by the National Academy of Sciences on behalf of NASA. "Potable water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; immediate or eventual loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, transportation, fuel resupply and so on," the report states. Outages could take months to fix, the researchers say. Banks might close, and trade with other countries might halt. The next peak in solar activity is expected around 2012.
posted by stbalbach
on Jan 7, 2009 -
61 comments
Pink Floyd fans may not need no education but
Gilmourish, an exhaustive review of the guitars and audio effects of Pink Floyd's David Gilmour (with help from an insider), will leave most comfortably numb.
posted by punkfloyd
on Oct 19, 2007 -
35 comments
The Thirteen Towers of Chankillo in Peru may be the Western Hemisphere's oldest known
full-service solar observatory, showing evidence of early, sophisticated
Sun cults, according to
archaeoastronomy professor
Clive Ruggles. The 2,300-year-old complex featured 13 towers running north to south along a ridge and spread across 980 feet to form a toothed horizon that
spans the solar arc. Last year, another ancient observatory was discovered in Peru by
Robert Benfer.
The Temple of the Fox is 4,200 years old, making it
1,900 years older than the Chankillo site, but wasn't a complete calendar.
posted by homunculus
on Mar 3, 2007 -
8 comments
Instead of reducing emissions, maybe we can block out the sun. This is a proposal offered by the United States in response to a draft of a UN report on climate change, prepared by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. According to the linked article, the U.S. has resisted a treaty that would involve binding targets for emissions reductions, and is instead pushing for the exploration of techniques for blocking out the sun, including (according to the Sydney Morning Herald article) "putting a giant screen into orbit, thousands of tiny, shiny balloons, or microscopic sulfate droplets pumped into the high atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption." This is via Yale Law professor Jack Balkin, who
speculates that there is Biblical precedent for this proposal.
posted by jayder
on Jan 29, 2007 -
93 comments
Transit of Mercury again. here Transit of Mercury again. Today -- and not for another seven years or so -- Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun, shwoing up a speck-like black circle. But don't look. Starting times, real-time visual, ways to see it and another caution are here. rotoman
posted by rotoman
on Nov 7, 2006 -
40 comments
