1. gregladen
  2. The Sun is Exploding!

The Sun is Exploding!

By gregladen on June 3, 2012.

Well, it is always exploding. But I just heard that "A big coronal hole is turning directly towards the Earth. Solar wind flowing from the opening should reach our planet on June 5-7, possibly sparking geomagnetic storms" and maybe the aurora will be visible over a larger area.

I heard that from the iPad app "3D Sun." This is an app that informs me whenever the sun is up to anything interesting, and also provides images of current and older solar events, a handy glossary of terms, and an excellent 3D sun "globe" (as it were) which can be used to find landmarks and stuff:

Pinch-able moveable 3D sun graphic from the iPad 3d Sun app.

With 3D Sun, which can be set to supply push notifications, I'll always know when to don the tin foil hat.

Data used in the 3D sun view come from NASA's STEREO mission and the app is said to have been developed in cooperation with NASA scientists. It is free, but I'd pay $0.99 for it for sure. This app could be great for physics classes. Installed it uses a mere 12.5 megabytes.

Tags
iPad
iPad app
sun

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