Our Unquiet Sun

You are looking at a total solar eclipse isn't it fascinating? This thing, this star we call the Sun, and in latin is "Sol" makes our "Sol-ar" system the miracle it is. Without the gravity of this actually quite mediocre star, there would be no galaxy. Does that mean there would be no life?? That is exactly what it means. No life.




"Sol" is a star like many others its size, it's like a tiny nuclear reactor plant, using fusion to operate. If this planet were only a few inches closer or farther away, life couldn't have taken footholds here. That always makes me wonder exactly where WOULD it have started, if not here - on Earth. IF AT ALL. We've found the building blocks, the nitrates, the microbes, even the frozen water, but not the life we seek. Only here. And the Sun could wipe us out. Actually, one day it will - but humankind will have gone extinct by then, probably the last to extinguish.

And look at this Solar flare, doesn't it make you feel small and helpless against such forces? Amazing.





This is the moon as it "transits" or moves across the face of the Sun. It took over 12 hours to make the complete trip.






Can you see the light at the center of this nebula? It's coming into being - all those gases and dust clouds, all that space debris forming odd shapes and mysteries in our minds. Nebulas are nurseries for stars, this is where they're born.


Here's an X-ray image of the Sun, you wouldn't even recognize it otherwise. And this was taken while the Sun was "quiet" how incredible.


So restless, this unquiet star, Such power.

I truly believe the ancients knew something about this orb of magic and wonder. What did they know that we may've forgotten?







Look closely as VENUS transits the Sun. See it?


If nothing else, we owe this star our everlasting WONDER.