Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is a wonderful photo of a blue Sun (our Sun). The photo is converted blue to highlight the rapidly moving gases that end up looking like bristles on a carpet.
The description on the photo is particularly interesting, mainly this part:
Our Sun glows because it is hot, but it is not on fire. Fire is the rapid acquisition of oxygen, and there is very little oxygen on the Sun. The energy source of our Sun is the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium deep within its core. No sunspots or large active regions were visible on the Sun this day, although some solar prominences are visible around the edges.
I have always thought of the Sun as an object that was on fire, but now it actually makes sense to read that the sun is almost never on fire. It’s just very hot.
This is a great and scary short film from Blue Tongue Films. It’s loosely based off of the saying “It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye”. A great lesson can be learned from the end. I won’t spoil the ending, so just watch it.
I should probably watch Discovery Channel’s Time Warp more often so that I can see awesome slow-motion videos like this fireball coming from a blender. [via]
A man at Walmart in Kentucky was blasted to the floor when a propane tank in the back of his pickup truck exploded. The whole incident was caught by surveillance cameras and the video is just shocking. The man reportedly survived with some burns to his body. There’s no word on how the propane tank became inflamed.
I used to own a butane gas lighter. It was fun to play with and also fun to watch as the blue flame shot through the air without flickering. Some time ago, I lost that butane lighter and I’ve missed it ever since.
Now I hear that Zippo has unleashed a new butane gas lighter called the Zippo BLU. It looks like your standard everyday Zippo lighter except that inside its metal body is butane lighter fluid. And from its flint-wheel ignition comes a strong flame that can stand up to a lot more than your traditional lighters.
