| Cult of Mac

Amazing 4K video of the sun is perfect for your 5K iMac

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Might as well be walking on the... Photo: NASA
Might as well be walking on the... Photo: NASA

If you got one of those amazing new iMacs with the crazy 5K pixel resolution, you’d be crazy not to watch this stunning animation of the sun by YouTuber James Tyrwhitt-Drake. You can gaze at the star at the heart of our solar system for a full eight minutes, using YouTube’s new 4K resolution setting and that killer new Mac.

This timelapse covers about 16 days of solar activity, focusing on the largest sunspot in the last 22 years (about two solar cycles), which is cleverly named AR 2192.

Check it out and enjoy.

NASA captures Halloween cheer with jack-o’-lantern sun

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Black hole sun/Won't you come... Photo: NASA/SDO
Black hole sun/Won't you come... Photo: NASA/SDO

Is there anything cooler than images of our solar system? Especially ones of the actual Sol, or, our sun. No, there is not.

This fantastically seasonal Halloween image was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which does nothing but stare at the sun all day and night in complete disregard of what its mother told it not to do.

Regardless, this image is amazing.

“The active regions in this image appear brighter,” writes NASA on its website, “because those are areas that emit more light and energy. They are markers of an intense and complex set of magnetic fields hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona.”

This image blends the images taken with two different ultraviolet wavelengths highlighted, one at 171 and the other at 193 Ångströms, to create this one-of-a-kind jack-o’-lantern sun.

Whatever — this thing is just creepy cool and I want a giant poster of it.

Source: NASA