The sun is big. Really big.

[andrewducker]

More info

Comments

[makyo.livejournal.com]

The mathematician and comedian Matt Parker has some further analysis here, where he calculates the awesomeness of this event at approximately 2.2 kilo-Alderaans of awesome.

[andrewducker]

That was fantastic!

[andythms.livejournal.com]

If you enjoyed Matt Parker then you might like to know he's 1/3 of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, who will be in Edinburgh for 2 nights in August (with a different show each night). It's a thoroughly enjoyable evening of science and comedy - details are at http://fotsn.com/.

[spacelem.livejournal.com]

Yes, really big.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Frightened now...

[pigwotflies.livejournal.com]

Woah! I thought it was going to stop with the sun, but it kept going and going and going...

We're really really really tiny!

[andrewducker]

On said subject, I rather like this quote:
http://www.bigskyastroclub.org/pale_blue_dot.htm

[makyo.livejournal.com]

There's a really nice recording of Carl Sagan reading this passage here, with Brian Eno's Ascent in the background.

[andrewducker]

Cheers - I'll have a listen tonight!

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Aside from the scale (I didn't realize there were stars that huge), I also didn't know there were magenta stars.

[andrewducker]

I was intrigued by the way that Mu Cephei looked - so looked it up, and discovered it has a massive cloud of dust and water around it.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I was surprised by V838 Monocerotis, which may or may not actually be magenta, but is definitely weird.

[strawberryfrog.livejournal.com]

A gigantic nuclear furnace.

[fearmeforiampink]

And big, and not a place where we could live.