Who Knew? Massive Explosion on the Sun
Apparently an extremely large - mega-sized explosion occurred on the face of the Sun - across a spot on the sun that is larger than the earth - and i had no idea.
crazy, eh?
Dr Luci Green, of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory says, “It looks like the first eruption was so large that it changed the magnetic fields throughout half the Sun’s visible atmosphere and provided the right conditions for the second eruption.”
hrm. that sounds like a pretty large eruption…which technically is called a coronal mass ejection.
Anyhoo, as a result of these explosions, scientists predict a “solar tsunami” as the ripples of the blast travel the 93 million miles across the solar system towards earth.
Be sure to wear sunblock? It may be too late.
It probably already hit, and i didnt even know it.
read more about it at the guardian
Because Math and Food Go So Well Together
Yo, check it. So there i was, eating a bagel, wondering how to make a mobius strip out of it. Because, you know, lox and cream cheese are so much more fun to eat off of a non-orientable, single-sided strip of breading. I mean, right???
But, alas, i couldn’t wrap my head around it, so i found this site instead, that shows you how to cut a bagel into two equal halves that linked together as if they were a portion of a chain. And so I said to myself, “Self, that is pretty cool, let’s do that instead of the Mobius Strip thing.”
Full instructions - done with shockingly awesome use of the three dimensional Cartesian coordinate system - of how to make this brilliance of math and food can be found here.
Lunar Phases
So I found myself thinking about Neap tides, and big swings in the water columns and tidal effects on fishing and surfing and other uh, stuff. You know, that sorta thing you start to rat-hole down in your mind as you have a thought like “phew it REALLY stinks by the waterfront right now…where did all the water go? it’s just stinky mud - oh right! it’s a really low tide right now - oh look! mussels! are they safe to eat?”
and so forth.
See, the moon has a big effect on the earth’s tides as does the sun as our planet makes its eliptical orbit around it… our planet is also rotating on something like a 23 degree tilt from a true right angle axis within its orbit and then there is that thing about apogee and perigee and proximities to the sun and all that. and then my head starts to hurt, so i turn to wikipedia, that source of all things quick and factual. Lo, i learned nothing, but stumbled upon a whole new set of questions. And i also came across this nifty chart, which is just awesome.
