Intelligence measured in Arcseconds

It seems that as well as electing a new premier and discovering hip-hop, the japanese have been busy in space. They actually have a spacecraft up there, the Hinode, and it's been taking a peek at the Sun. Here's a piccy (you can click through to enlarge).

Image copyright JAXA

Each one of these little nugget-like lumps is a cloud of quite hot gas, about the size of Asia. I guess this means then, that the Sun is quite a chunky old feller?

The Hinode spacecraft is a project by JAXA and you can find out more about it here if you're interested, as well as see lots of colourful and informative pictures of the Sun.

It was launched only last month, on September 22. Curiously, this was the same day (in 1982) that Billie Piper, of Doctor Who fame, was born and also the day (in 2890) that Bilbo Baggins of the Shire was (or is it 'will be'?) born. I wonder if the sight of this rocket, engines burning bright in a Japanese Saturday morning sky, set Billie in mind for her time and space travelling role with the Doctor. Certainly it would have made a nice firework for Bilbo's birthday celebrations.

What I found particularly interesting is the Hinode's high resolution telescope. Apparently it can achieve "a very high angular resolution of 0.2 arcseconds". For those (like me until a minute ago), who aren't sure what an arcsecond is, "One arcsecond is an angle equal to 1/3600 of a degree—or approximately the width of a human hair held thirty feet away".

Okay so let's have a think about this. A continent sized cloud of quite hot gas on the Sun, must be like the width of one fifth of a human hair, held out at thirty feet? But how would I hold a human hair thirty feet away? My arms aren't that long, you see. Hmm, I seem to be getting a bit confused about these distances and widths. Perhaps an arcsecond might be a useful unit of measurement to assess the width of my single brain cell. In fact I wonder what it might tell me about my IQ, if I went off and stood in front of the Hinode's, Solar Optical Telescope? Well I mean thirty feet away, of course.

Listening to: Leonard Cohen, "Winter Lady"
Dreaming: that I got dizzy and fell into the Sun