Mars in a Manger

Magnify glasses can be provided by the candy shop, at the entrance LOL


Mars in a Manger
Image Credit & Copyright: John Ambrose

Explanation: At opposition in late January, Mars shone very brightly in planet Earth's night sky, among the stars of the constellation Cancer the Crab. Since then the Red Planet has been fading, but still lingers in Cancer during April and May. In mid-April, Mars wandered remarkably close to Cancer's famous star cluster M44, the Beehive Cluster. M44 is also known by an older name, Praesepe, Latin for cradle or manger. Captured in this 60 second time exposure made on April 14, a yellow-tinged Mars and M44 are near the center of the field, seemingly just beyond the reach of a pine tree. Of course, M44's stars are about 600 light-years away, while Mars was more like 600 light-seconds from Earth. The digital photograph was made with a camera mounted on a telescope tracking the stars through dark skies above a camp ground in Virginia, USA. During the exposure, passing car lights briefly illuminated the tree branches.

Pearl before swine

Be careful with over enthusiast people behind your pc :))))

Peanuts

You don't necessarily need to be evil to say no, now and than!

<

I let you free

De engelse uitvoering vind je op de groep StayingPower.

I hold you a little closer to me, now And then I tell you that you're free to go That much, I do love you That I in blind trust on you Fly out, free like a bird Look at the horizon Discover new borders Other people Make mistakes, do things well Be yourself, most of all Grow, flower, intrigue Do not change too much You are unique, and every time different again Always yourself Fly high through the sky THere are no limits in what you can enjoy And when you then, tired full of experiences maybe with some wrinkles with everything you lost and most of all, what you wan When you need some rest again Feel always welcome to fly back to me I wait for you, because just like you I feel you, so near me as is possible I love you oh so much So much is what you mean to me That I trust you That I say I love you I let you free So that you are always with me

Washed Up Whale Found with Gallons of Our Garbage In Its Gut

Photo credit Cascadia Research Collective

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A young 37-foot whale stranded on the shore in West Seattle, and it had a summary of what we're doing to our oceans held within its stomach. As photographer Chris Jordan documented in birds' guts, our marine animals are filling up not on nutritious sea life, but the junk we toss out that makes its way into the oceans. Fifty gallons of contents were examined from this near-adult male gray whale, and you won't believe some of the garbage this poor beast had swallowed.

Chris Jordan documents animals ingesting plastic, with fatal consequences

According to Cascadia Research Collective, 50 gallons of stomach contents were sorted through. Most of it was real food - algae and other bits common to a gray whale diet - but also included were more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball.

If there were any doubt before, there is none now - the ocean has become a landfill. However, if there's a bit of a silver lining, the trash made up just about 2% of the total contents, and it doesn't seem to have been the cause of death. But what Cascadia Research points out, "It did clearly indicate that the whale had been attempting to feed in industrial waters and therefore exposed to debris and contaminants present on the bottom in these areas."

Gray whales are bottom feeders and get their nutrition from the sediments in shallow waters. They filter small organisms as their food, but apparently they aren't always able to filter out human pollution. Researchers are currently studying the whale to find out the cause of death, which could be anything from not getting enough food (three other whales that died in April during migration appeared emaciated and perhaps didn't get enough to eat in Alaska last year) to pollution and chemicals in the water. The results won't be known for several weeks.

Follow Jaymi on Twitter

See also: Octopus Steals Diver's Camera, Shoots Home Movie With It (Video)

More on Marine Pollution
What's Your Ocean Pollution IQ? (Quiz)
Shocking Report Reveals Marine Litter Madness (Plus 10 Easy Ways to Help Save Our Oceans!)
The Devastating Effects of Marine Litter (Slideshow)

Island Once Overrun by Rats Now Buried in Bunnies

WOW!!!

read this story, it's amazing!

Photo: Reuters via the Daily Mail

Four years ago, the tiny Scottish island of Canna had a rat problem. The invasive pests were relentless, threatening the island's native bird colonies and other local wildlife. So, in 2005, the island's 20 residence called in rat-killing experts for help. Around two years and nearly a million dollars later, Canna is rat-free--but their troubles still remain, albeit in a slightly cuter form. As it turns out, the invasive rats were the one thing damping down the island's invasive rabbit population. Without the rats, a bunny-boom has occurred on the island and residents are fed up.

According to a report in the Telegraph, the rabbits are "devastating" island monuments and invading local gardens. "There are thousands of them now--it has reached near plague proportions," said one islander. To do its part in staving off the bunny problem, the only restaurant on the island has begun serving bunny-based dishes, like rabbit pie.

The local residents, of course, are no stranger to pests threatening their tiny island home, part of Scotland's Hebrides. In 2005, rat extermination specialists from New Zealand poisoned 4,200 spots on the five mile long island to kill an invasive brown rat. About a year later, around 10,000 rats were dead and the island was declared 'rat-free'.

But with the rats gone, the rabbit population has been able to flourish. Canna resident Winnie Mackinnon told the Telegraph:

I have never known it so bad. It is because the rats have gone and they used to keep the rabbit numbers down. The rabbits don't have a natural predator anymore. We don't want the rats back--but the rabbits have become a major problem.

While the rats may have posed a threat to the island's native wildlife, the current rabbit problem is making life difficult for the human population. "They are in people's gardens - and being so far away from the mainland we rely a lot on growing our own vegetables," says Mackinnon.

Also under attack by the rabbits are several archeological sites on the island. An Iron Age mound is being undermined by the burrowing bunnies, and a hut that dates to the Stone Age is seeing its foundation eroded.

But not all island dwellers are complaining about the sudden spike in rabbits. According to Mackinnon, sea eagles are enjoying the plenty. "They have been having a real feast," she said. "But obviously nowhere near keeping up with the rabbit population."

The Telegraph reports that authorities from the National Trust for Scotland admit that there's a rabbit problem, but insist it has nothing to do with the rat extermination a few years back.

We recognize there is a rabbit problem on Canna as is the case on other Hebridean islands. But we don't believe it has got worse since the eradication of the rats. However we will continue to monitor the situation.

The island's 20 residents will no doubt continue to think of ways to tackle their new rabbit problem--but they're learning all too well about the complex balance of ecosystems. One can only imagine what will rear its head once the rabbits are staved off--a pesky case of invasive carrots?

More on Stopping Invasive Species
Eating Aliens: Are Invasive Species Ethical Food?
42 Tons of Rat Poison to be Dropped on Island Paradise
The Iron Curtain Stopped Invasive Species

Boo!

English below the dutch

Goede middag allemaal

Ik wens alle hollanders een fijne 'queens day', hopelijk is het weer niet al te slecht, maar vergeleken bij gisteren scheelt het werkelijk een jas!

Dus, was ik, hoe kan het anders, vanmorgen te dun gekleed boodschappen doen, maar alles is binnen, morgen is het hier in duitsland een vrije dag, dus zijn de winkels dicht, hoera, lekker niets moeten en hoeven, en dat 2 dagen lang.

Geniet van je dag/dagen en tot de volgende Garfield.

Ja Edwin, je mag weer klikken, en anderen ook :)

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Hello world, there we are again.

In Holland April 30th is Queens day, usually with a nice bright sun, but wow, what a difference with yesterday, yesterdy so hot and sunny, and now so chilly and cold. Absolute madness, and I was naturally too light dressed when I went shopping -lol-

Nevertheless, all is in house, tomorrow it is here a day off, all shops closed, also a nice long weeken with no needs to do, just what I want to do!

Enjoy your day and I'd put a song under the picture that fits today ..

Pearls before Swine

Peanuts

Good choice snoopy. Don't get it started LOL

Virgo Cluster Galaxy NGC 4731

Virgo Cluster Galaxy NGC 4731
Image Credit & Copyright: Stephen Leshin

Explanation: Barred spiral galaxy NGC 4731 lies some 65 million light-years away. The lovely island universe resides in the large Virgo cluster of galaxies. Colors in this well-composed, cosmic portrait, highlight plentiful, young, bluish star clusters along the galaxy's sweeping spiral arms. Its broad arms are distorted by gravitational interaction with a fellow Virgo cluster member, giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4697. NGC 4697 is beyond this frame above and to the left, but a smaller irregular galaxy NGC 4731A can be seen near the bottom in impressive detail with its own young blue star clusters. Of course, the individual, colorful, spiky stars in the scene are much closer, within our own Milky Way galaxy. NGC 4731 itself is well over 100,000 light-years across.

Pearls before Swine

>

Peanuts

Had missed it yesterday, but, there it is

Sunset on a Golden Sea

Sunset on a Golden Sea
Image Credit & Copyright: Pete Lawrence (Digital-Astronomy)

Explanation: On April 17, the sky was clear and the Sun's colour was spectacular as night approached. This striking telescopic view even captures the Sun's swollen and distorted shape from the southern coast of the UK. Reflecting a bright column of sunlight, the sea also appears golden, with the horizon marked by the city of Portsmouth. Were the colours made more intense by volcanic dust? Maybe not. Normally, sunset (and sunrise) colours can still be very dramatic, especially when the atmosphere is clear and the Sun is viewed very near the horizon, as in this scene. But large dust particles, like those in the airline-thwarting ash clouds from the erupting Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallaj�kull, tend to create diffuse and subdued sunset colours.

Clorox Says it Owns the Daisy, Sends Cease and Desist Letter

463diggsdiggSo who owns the daisy? Apparently the Clorox Company has since September 2009, when they registered the mark "consisting of a flower with yellow petals with orange shades appearing toward the center of the flower, green center, and black shadow surrounding the green center." Method has been using daisies on its cleaning products for six years, but as they note in their video below, never bothered to register it, suggesting that Mother Earth held the patent on this one.

Method first graced the pages of TreeHugger in 2004 in one of our earliest posts;Adam Lowry and Eric Ryan were pioneers in the green marketing world, bringing transparency, humor, safe ingredients and good design to cleaning products.

In the opposite corner, Clorox and Greenworks.

Greenworks from Mega-corp Clorox launched with a bang, the blessing of the Sierra Club (and a whole lot of advertising on TreeHugger) in January, 2008. Hugely successful, they have been eating Method's lunch ever since. And now they want to eat their daisies. They have sent Method a cease and desist letter (pdf here) including the following friendly message:

Eric and Adam aren't folding. They are counterattacking with humor and style, demonstrating everything that they purport to be (two room-mates who started a company that grew) and making a big portrayal of Clorox as the big megacorp that is lawyered up and bleaches companies like Method out like damn spots.

Eric and Adam are running a campaign where you Vote Daisy, voting for Clorox, Method, or Mother Earth and bless them, they are urging you to vote for Mother Earth.

But no matter what the poll result is, there is no way that Clorox can win this war. They come off looking petty and evil, and forget that there is more to being green than what is in the bottle; business practices matter.

Besides, everyone knows that Lyndon Johnson owns the daisy.

Awe Inspiring Seed Cathedral Wows at Shanghai World Expo 2010

Images via: dezeen.com and despoke.com

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The fierce competition between showstopping pavilions is heating up inShanghai as the opening of the World Expo 2010 draws nearer (May 1). But one pavilion has already been drawing in the crowds throughout its construction, thanks to an extraordinary bristling form of 60,000 fibre-optic rods, each with a seed implanted in its tip. The UK Pavilion, otherwise known as the Seed Cathedral, created by British design star Thomas Heatherwickand his studio, is quite simply the most extraordinary structure we have ever seen. And that's just the outside, wait till you see the seeds inside...

Uniquely British Design Innovation
The UK Pavilion's job at the Shanghai World Expo is to promote the strength of Britain's reputation for design innovation. Thomas Heatherwick is definitely the go to guy in the UK for unique showstopping structures and, from all the images, it looks like he has outdone even himself this time. Of the all pavilions at the Expo it looks like the UK's Seed Cathedral is attracting the most attention, no mean feat since there are 230 different pavilions on show.

Seed Cathedral sways in the breeze
As Despoke.com reports the Seed Cathedral is "20 metres in height, formed from 60,000 slender transparent rods, each 7.5 metres long and each encasing one or more seeds at its tip. During the day, they act as optic fibres and draw daylight inwards to illuminate the interior. At night, light sources inside each rod allow the whole structure to glow. As the wind moves past, the building and its optic "hairs" gently move to create a dynamic effect."

Shanghai World Expo 2010 Theme - Better City, Better Life
The UK Pavilion rather sensibly doesn't aim to compete with Asian high-tech solutions, but goes for a spectacular low-tech approach instead. Heatherwick Studio describe their approach as engaging "meaningfully with Shanghai Expo's theme, Better City, Better Life, and standing out from the anticipated trend for technology driven pavilions, filled with audio-visual content on screens, projections and speakers."

Working with Kew Gardens' Millenium Seedbank Project
We love Heatherwick's idea of combining a complex structure with a simple, quiet, reverent message. The designer says he was inspired by the "relationship between nature and cities" and decided to celebrate the UK's beautiful green spaces by teaming up with the world famous Kew Gardens in London and the Millennium Seedbank project, whose mission is to collect the seeds of 25% of the world's plant species by 2020.

The seeds for the UK Pavilion have been sourced from China's Kunming Institute of Botany, a partner in Kew Royal Botanic Gardens' Millennium Seed Bank Project. The interior experience of the Seed Cathedral sounds just as magical as viewing the exterior structure, "Visitors will pass through this tranquil, contemplative space, surrounded by the tens of thousands of points of light illuminating the seeds."

Seed Cathedral Structure
The supporting structure of the UK Pavilion is made from wood and steel which is pierced with 60 000 holes for each one of the aluminum sleeves which hold the fiber optic rods. This 'low-tech' solution actually had a very 'high-tech' method of execution:

"The holes in the 1 metre thick wood diaphram structure forming the visitor space inside the Seed Cathedral were drilled with great geometric accuracy to ensure precise placement of the aluminium sleeves through which the optic fibre filaments are inserted. This was achieved using 3D computer modelling data, fed into a computer controlled milling machine."

Heatherwick Studio says that, "75% of the materials for the UK Pavilion have been sourced from within a radius of 300km around Shanghai."

UK Pavilion's Afterlife
Heatherwick Studio reports that the Seed Cathedral has already found favour with the Chinese public, who have nick-named the pavilion 'Pu Gong Ying', which translates as 'The Dandelion'. We are also glad to hear that the studio have planned for the afterlife of the pavilion when the World Expo ends.

"After the Expo, just as dandelion seeds are blown away and disperse on the breeze, the Seed Cathedral's 60,000 optic hairs, each one containing the huge potential of life, will be distributed across China and the UK to hundreds of schools as a special legacy of the UK Pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Expo."

Of the extraordinary design and engineering production that is the UK PavilionThomas Heatherwick says, "It has been a tremendous achievement of the team to deliver such a complex structure. I am excited that the Seed Cathedral is now complete and I look forward to the millions of visitors to the Expo enjoying the space."

More on Shanghai World Expo 2010
World's First "Carbon Negative" Car Concept at Expo 2010 in Shanghai
Floating City Proposed For Shanghai World Expo
Shanghai Pavilion is Built From Recycled CD Cases
Architecture Without Architects: Critic Blasts the Canadian Pavilion at Shanghai 2010
Acrobats Design Canada Pavilion with Rainwater Harvesting, Green Walls
Swiss Pavilion at Shanghai has Green Roof, Soybean Walls

Paper Company Starts Campaign To Promote Printing of Email

TreeHuggers have been bashing printers for years, putting those "Think before you print" messages on the bottom of our emails. John Williams of Domtar, a big paper company, says they are "just bull" and is starting a marketing campaign- "Put it On Paper!" to promote printing, particularly among young people. He told the Canadian Club:

"Young people really are not printers. When was the last time your children demanded a printer? They want the electronic device. We've got to do some work about having them believe and feel that printing isn't a sort of environmental negative."

Domtar's John Williams is reaching out to the Facebook Crowd

Although the campaign sounds as hilarious as CO2: We call it life and the Clean Coal Carolers, Greenpeace is not amused and tells the Globe and Mail:

"To go against the current with this kind of campaign is to go backwards," she said. "We should be encouraging reduction of paper use and use of recycled paper."

Paper demand is shrinking by 4% per year, so Domtar's Williams wants to reach out to a new generation of paper consumers.

The key to winning over people in the campaign being launched is being "real," he said.

"I think it's very powerful and I think it's time and I don't apologize for the fact I think it's true and that this will resonate with young people."

So get out there and print, kids! More in the Globe and Mail

cheers!

English below the dutch

Goedemiddag allemaal, Jaaa, het is HEERLIJK weer buiten en ik ben genoeg buiten geweest om lekker weer eventjes me binnen (digitaal) te vermaken.
De voet zit in een mooie blauwe brace, dus dat is al weer een stuk in de goede richting ook.

Het is een heerlijke dag, mooi weer, dus zorg er vooral voor dat je genoeg drinkt, maar het hoeft niet per se prikkelend te zijn he? ;)

Ik heb vandaag maar eens een lekker deuntje onder het plaatje geplakt, dus, klikt u maar!

Geniet ervan, tot de volgende!

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Good afternoon everyone.

Yes, it is summerweather, and I was enough outside to enoy me (digital) inside again.
The plaster from my foot is off - jay!- and now there is a nice blue brace around it, so we are on the way back :)

Lovely weather it is, a lovely day, so take care you drink enough, and it not necessarily needs to be pop LOL.

And under the picture is a nice golden oldie, enjoy!

Enjoy the day, see you next time

The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean

The Bloop: A Mysterious Sound from the Deep Ocean
Credit: NOAA, SOSUS

Explanation: What created this strange sound in Earth's Pacific Ocean? Pictured above is a visual representation of a loud and unusual sound, dubbed a Bloop, captured by deep sea microphones in 1997. In the above graph, time is shown on the horizontal axis, deep pitch is shown on the vertical axis, and brightness designates loudness. Although Bloops are some of the loudest sounds of any type ever recorded in Earth's oceans, their origin remains unknown.The Bloop sound was placed as occurring several times off the southern coast of South America and was audible 5,000 kilometers away. Although the sound has similarities to those vocalized by living organisms, not even a blue whale is large enough to croon this loud. The sounds point to the intriguing hypothesis that even larger life forms lurk in the unexplored darkness of Earth's deep oceans. A less imagination-inspiring possibility, however, is that the sounds resulted from some sort of iceberg calving. No further Bloops have been heard since 1997, although other loud and unexplained sounds have been recorded.

Pearls before Swine

and this one is especially because Alex love them so

Peanuts

garfield

no story

again!

but this picture tells all about me today!

Dust Pillar of the Carina Nebula

man what a beauty again!

Dust Pillar of the Carina Nebula
Credit: NASA, ESA, and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

Explanation: Inside the head of this interstellar monster is a star that is slowly destroying it. The monster, on the right, is actually an inanimate pillar of gasand dust that measures over a light year in length. The star, not itself visible through the opaque dust, is bursting out partly by ejecting energetic beams of particles. Similar epic battles are being waged all over the star-forming Carina Nebula. The stars will win in the end, destroying their pillars of creation over the next 100,000 years, and resulting in a new open cluster of stars. The pink dots around the image are newly formed stars that have already been freed from their birth monster. The above image was released last week in commemoration of the Hubble Space Telescopes 20th year of operation. The technical name for the stellar jets are Herbig-Haro objects. How a star creates Herbig-Haro jets is an ongoing topic of research, but it likely involves anaccretion disk swirling around a central star. A second impressive Herbig-Haro jet occurs diagonally near the image center.

garfield

Rushing from here to there, but at least just in time for Garfield, because it is so good and so true!

Pearls before Swine

Peanuts

>

Invisible Iguanas and Precocious Sea Lion Pups of the Galapagos (Videos)

Photo via Mission Blue Flickr Stream; Credit: TED/James Duncan Davidson

TreeHugger Graham Hill was part of the Mission Blue Voyage put on by TED earlier in the month, and had a chance to get up close with the famous iguanas and sea lions of the Galapagos. The species are utterly unafraid of humans and if you're not looking out, you can step on them (which they don't exactly enjoy). Check out videos of the piled up iguanas, and a sea lion pup playing with mama.

Graham mentioned that you have to be really careful climbing over the rocks because you can easily step on these well camouflaged and unafraid animals - which he nearly did several times. Yet, recently researchers found a pink iguana living in the islands - quite different from the darker iguanas shown here.

The sea lions are super cool too. Here's a mama and pup. They're equally unafraid and can pose just as much of a trip hazard if you're wandering down the beach not paying attention. Interestingly, Galapagos sea lions are starting to move to Peru, setting up rookeries 900 miles from where they evolved. Rising sea temperatures is thought to be the reason behind the shift in location.

TreeHugger Brian went out to the Galapagos in 2008, taking gorgeous pictures of the wildlife while he learned about conservation efforts and the native flora and fauna during a study tour with top US educators.

The islands are endlessly interesting, and that's no small part of the reason why Mission Blue decided to voyage there - it underlines the diversity and uniqueness of marine ecosystems, and why conservation and preservation - especially in the form of marine protected areas - are so important.

Follow Jaymi on Twitter

More on Mission Blue Voyage
Brilliance of Octopus Inspires Filmmaker Mike deGruy To Save the Ocean (Video)
Crowd-Sourcing Solutions to Plastic-Filled Oceans
Our Oceans Are Un-Owned, Un-Explored, Un-Protected - Updates from TED Oceans Mission Blue Conference
TED Talk - Edith Widder Discovers New Deep Sea Life By Mimicking Bioluminescence (Video)
TED 2010: Sylvia Earle Gets Her Wish - Mission Blue Launches To Create Marine Preserves

Pearls before Swine

Peanuts

Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula

Planetary Nebula Mz3: The Ant Nebula
Credit: R. Sahai (JPL) et al., Hubble Heritage Team, ESA, NASA

Explanation: Why isn't this ant a big sphere? Planetary nebula Mz3 is being cast off by a star similar to our Sun that is, surely, round. Why then would the gas that is streaming away create an ant-shaped nebula that is distinctly not round? Clues might include the high 1000-kilometer per second speed of the expelled gas, the light-year long length of the structure, and the magnetism of the star visible above at the nebula's center. One possible answer is that Mz3is hiding a second, dimmer star that orbits close in to the bright star. A competing hypothesis holds that the central star's own spin and magnetic field are channeling the gas. Since the central star appears to be so similar to our own Sun, astronomers hope that increased understanding of the history of this giant space ant can provide useful insight into the likely future of our own Sun and Earth.

Pearls before Swine

Peanuts

NGC 1055: Galaxy in a Box

NGC 1055: Galaxy in a Box
Image Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Obs.), Collaboration: David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA, IAC), et al.

Explanation: Big, beautiful spiral galaxy NGC 1055 is a dominant member of a small galaxy group a mere 60 million light-years away toward the intimidating constellation Cetus. Seen edge-on, the island universe spans about 100,000 light-years, similar in size to our own Milky Way. Colorful, spikystars in this cosmic portrait of NGC 1055 are in the foreground, well within the Milky Way. But along with a smattering of more distant background galaxies, the deep image also reveals a curious box-shaped inner halo extending far above and below this galaxy's dusty plane. The halo itself is laced with faint, narrow structures, and could represent the mixed and spread out debris from a satellite galaxy disrupted by the larger spiral some 10 billion years ago.

Vote: Which image would make the best APOD?

Google logo Ruimtetelescoop Hubble - 24 april 2010

Ruimtetelescoop Hubble - 24 april 2010

Speciaal Google logo in het teken van Ruimtetelescoop Hubble, gelanceerd op 24 april 1980. Het logo werd net als de Olympische Doodles in 2010 geplaatst over de geheele breedte van de homepage. Verder zaten er vier Easter Eggs verwerkt in het logo, dit zijn links naar foto's gemaakt door de telescoop op Google Sky.

SDO: The Extreme Ultraviolet Sun

SDO: The Extreme Ultraviolet Sun
Credit: NASA / Goddard / SDO AIA Team

Explanation: Don't panic, the Sun has not gone wild. But this wild-looking portrait of the nearest star to planet Earth was made on March 30th by therecently launched Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Shown in false-color, the composite view covers extreme ultraviolet wavelengths and traces hot plasma at temperatures approaching 1 million kelvins. At full resolution, SDO image data is intended to explore solar activity in unprecedented detail. In fact, SDO will send 1.5 terabytes of data back each day, equivalent to a daily download of about half a million MP3 songs. New SDO data releasesinclude a high-resolution movie of the large, eruptive prominence seen along the solar limb at the upper left.

Pearls before Swine