The Sun Like a Black Jewel

[nancylebov]

Ultraviolet image of the sun



Link from yhlee.

Two science questions: If most of the sun's UV comes from sunspots and sunspots have an 11 year cycle with a very low minimum, why doesn't the risk of sunburn vary enough for people to notice it?

When I was googling about the sunspot cycle, I found that it's really a 22 year cycle with the magnetic polarity of the spots alternating from cycle to cycle. How can you tell what polarity a sunspot has? It seems to have been known long enough that it doesn't take especially high tech.

Hypothetical tank bike



Link from sclerotic_rings.

The connection between this and the UV sun is that the bike would also make spiffy jewelry. Even if it doesn't work as a bike, it would also make a superb toy.

And I've gotten around to figuring out how to put images in my posts--satisfying, but a little fiddly. I *think* the proportions for the NASA picture are about right (it isn't square, but if I just copied it without specifying pixels, it got flattened too much) and the bicycle is about as big as it can get without being too pixelly.

The alt="description" thing doesn't work, and I don't see way, but it's easy enough to add non-html captions.

Comments

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

The pics look just fine, as you no doubt know. Good stuff, especially the black light sun. Looks like it has continents and everything.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I did know they looked good, I just wasn't sure if the sun was flattened just right.

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

Well, anybody who stares at the sun long enough to try and figure out if it's the proper ratio probably deserves what they get.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I am the only one who finds something mildly amusing about sitting at a home computer and flattening the sun.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

But ... but ... but ... that's not a bi-cycle at all; it's a uni-track! (Or is it a mono-track? Darn, I gotta go look up the etymology of 'track' now, to figure out which language to grab the prefix from.)

But okay, yeah, it's cool-looking, which is much more the point.

[schulman.livejournal.com]

The alt="description" thing doesn't work, and I don't see way, but it's easy enough to add non-html captions.

Your alt captions work fine in IE, but not in Firefox. To have them work in both browsers (and Safari, I believe), use title="description" instead.

[(Anonymous)]

I have IE6, I think. I substituted title for alt, but the captions still didn't show up. What's more, the edit icon shows up in Firefox, but not in IE.

[schulman.livejournal.com]

I'm seeing the captions in both IE6 and Firefox now that you're using title.

How are you looking for them? You should see the caption pop up in a light yellow box when you hover the cursor over the picture for a second or two. The mouse does have to be still for that second; the caption won't show up if the mouse is moving.

(Sorry if you already know all this.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

No, I knew about floating yellow tags, but I thought a caption was text like the roll-your-text for links. I wonder how many people rest their cursors on pictures in the hope that a yellow tag will appear.

[prynne.livejournal.com]

wow, wow, wow!


That is so beautiful. Thank you!

[demonspawnmom.livejournal.com]

The picture of the sun is stunning.