Y'know, I should never deal in superlatives. I said Thierry Legault's shot of the ISS during the solar eclipse last week was the best picture of it, but now, as amazing as that picture is, I think we've found something to tie it: the Japanese solar observing satellite Hinode took this jaw-dropping video:
[embed width="610"]http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/5332593243/[/embed]
OK, I'll say it: Holy Haleakala! Hinode
(pronounced HEEN-oh-day, which I'm telling you because I always say HI-node in my head when I see it) orbits the Earth, and has a near-continuous view of the Sun. When the Moon slipped between us and our star on January 4, Hinode had what might have been the best view. This video was made using images from the X-Ray Telescope, or XRT, and is sensitive to objects at temperatures of millions of degrees -- the Sun's magnetic field routinely generates such energies. You can see the looping material ...
