PIX for 14 OCTOBER

when the sun goes apeshit:
















from the huffington post.



i bet her boyfriend says she looks sexy when she's pissed off. awesome ones below from boston.com's big picture pages:

NASA's
STEREO satellite captured the first images ever of a collision between
a solar "hurricane", called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and a comet
on April 4, 2007. The collision caused the complete detachment of the
comet's plasma tail. Comets are icy leftovers from the solar system's
formation billions of years ago. They usually hang out in the cold,
distant regions of the solar system, but occasionally a gravitational
tug from a planet, another comet, or even a nearby star sends them into
the inner solar system. Once there, the sun's heat and radiation
vaporizes gas and dust from the comet, forming its tail. Comets
typically have two tails, one made of dust and a fainter one made of
electrically conducting gas, called plasma. (NASA/STEREO) #

5
The
total solar eclipse of February 16, 1980 was photographed from Palem,
India, by a research team from the High Altitude Observatory of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research. The photograph of the solar
corona was taken with a camera system developed by Gordon A. Newkirk,
Jr. This specialized instrument photographs the corona in red light,
6400 A -- through a radially graded filter that suppresses the bright
inner corona in order to show the much fainter streamers of the outer
corona in the same photograph. (Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee /
High Altitude Observatory (HAO), University Corporation for Atmospheric
Research (UCAR)) #

8
Solar
flares produce seismic waves in the Sun's interior that closely
resemble those created by earthquakes on our planet. On May 27, 1998,
researchers observed this flare-generated solar quake that contained
about 40,000 times the energy released in the great earthquake that
devastated San Francisco in 1906, equivalent to an 11.3 magnitude
earthquake, scientists calculated. Over the course of an hour, the
solar waves traveled for a distance equal to 10 Earth diameters before
fading into the fiery background of the Sun's photosphere. Unlike water
ripples that travel outward at a constant velocity, the solar waves
accelerated from an initial speed of 22,000 miles per hour to a maximum
of 250,000 miles per hour before disappearing. (Courtesy of SOHO/EIT
consortium. SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA
and NASA) #

9
An
animation of the sun, seen by NASA's Extreme ultraviolet Imaging
Telescope (EIT) over the course of 6 days, starting June 27, 2005.
(Courtesy of SOHO/EIT consortium) #

more coolioness from the big picture:

Worker
resting on bales of cotton, Thonakaha, Korhogo, Ivory Coast. Cotton
crops occupy approximately 335,000 square klilometers worldwide, and
use nearly one quarter of all pesticides sold. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Mountainous countryside near Maelifellssandur,
Myrdalsjökull Region, Iceland. Once the young lava fields of Iceland
cool down, life begins anew little by little. Ice, wind and water
flatten and carve out shapes to begin with, then, during the summer,
bacteria, lichen and fungi prepare the soil for plants, in particular
mosses which adapt to an environment which remains difficult. These
plants colonise the most favourable sites and terrain little by little,
forming a new ecosystem. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

"Tree
of life", Tsavo national park, Kenya. This acacia is a symbol of life
in the vast expanses of thorny savanna, where wild animals come to take
advantage of its leaves or its shade. Tsavo National Park in
southeastern Kenya, crossed by the Nairobi-Mombasa road and railway
axis, is the country's largest protected area (8,200 square miles, or
21,000 square kilometers) and was declared a national park in 1948. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Iraqi
tank graveyard in the desert near Al Jahrah, Kuwait. This graveyard of
tanks will bear witness for many years to the damage that war causes
both to the environment and to human health. In 1991, during the first
Gulf War, a million depleted uranium shells were fired at Iraqi forces,
spreading toxic, radioactive dust for miles around. Such dust is known
to have lasting effects on the environment and to cause various forms
of cancer and other serious illnesses among humans. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Village
in the Rheris Valley, Er Rachidia region, High Atlas Mountains,
Morocco. Fortified villages are frequently seen along the valley of the
Rheris, as they are on most rivers of southern Morocco, inspired by the
Berber architecture built to protect against invaders. Today, with the
threat of raids now gone, the close clustering of dwellings, small
windows, and roofs covering houses and narrow streets serve the purpose
of protecting occupants from heat and dust. The flat, connecting roofs
also provide a place for drying crops. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Road interrupted by a sand dune, Nile Valley,
Egypt. Dunes cover nearly one-third of the Sahara, and the highest, in
linear form, can attain a height of almost 1,000 feet (300 m). Barchans
are mobile, crescent-shaped dunes that move in the direction of the
prevailing wind at rates as high as 33 feet (10 m) per year, sometimes
even covering infrastructures such as this road in the Nile Valley. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Town
of Koh Pannyi, Phand Nga bay, Thailand. The south-western coast of
Thailand offers a series of beautiful bays lined with many islands.
Phang-nga Bay's special formations were created after the thawing of
ice 15,000 years ago. Rising waters then submerged arid calcareous
mountains, leaving only their peaks visible to the eye. The bay was
turned into a marine park in 1981. One of its popular attractions is
the village of Koh Panyi, which was built on piles two centuries ago by
Muslim sailors coming from Malaysia. The inhabitants make a living via
traditional fishing and tourism. Preserved by its configuration, the
bay floor of Phang-nga Bay suffered much less from the tsunami of
December 26, 2004 than nearby sites. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

Icebergs
and an Adelie penguin, Adelie Land, Antarctica. Antarctica, the sixth
continent, is a unique observation point for atmospheric and climatic
phenomena; its ancient ice, which trapped air when it was formed,
contains evidence of the Earth's climate as it has changed and
developed over the past millions of years. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #

A
whale swims off the Valdes peninsula, Argentina. After summering in the
Arctic, whales return to the southern seas each winter to reproduce.
From July to November, whales mate and bear their young along the
coasts of the Valdes Peninsula in Argentina. Until the 1950s, this
migratory marine mammal was extensively hunted for its meat and the oil
extracted from its fat, which brought it to the edge of extinction.
Protective measures were adopted after international attention was
focused on the problem in 1937. In 1982 a moratorium was declared on
whale hunting for commercial purposes, and in 1994 the southern seas
became a whale sanctuary. After decades of protection, 7 of the 13
whale species, of which only a few thousand remain (10 to 60 times
fewer than in the early 20th century), are still endangered. [map] (© Yann Arthus-Bertrand) #