Sun-diving Comet

[mkrnhr]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

Yes, the guardians of the temple are quick to shove it under the rug :)

 

[Bim]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

Nasa made it the picture of the week, with nice animations:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/

Also, they seem to be asking themselves why these CME's keep occurring exactly at the same time as these comet impacts, though I suspect they struggle (no surprise there) fitting it into their theories...

The question of whether a sungrazing comet can somehow trigger a coronal mass ejection is an intriguing one. So far, the feeling is that apparent relationship between some comets and some mass ejections is simply one of co-incidence. At this stage of the solar cycle, the Sun is producing many mass ejections--in fact there were several earlier in the day--and it probably just happened by chance that one of them was around the same time as the approach of the comet. Some researchers have been looking for a more direct relationship, but nothing as yet has come out of these efforts.

On Nasa

 

[Laura]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

Here is the animation of the same event:
http://spaceweather.com/images2011/05oct11/farsidecme.gif

Very cool! Thanks, mkrnhr.

It really DID look like a phoenix, the whole thing! That was totally cool! What is the legend of the phoenix?

 

[anart]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

It really DID look like a phoenix, the whole thing! That was totally cool! What is the legend of the phoenix?

I know! I posted it on facebook after I saved it yesterday since it was so cool. Here is what wikipedia says about the myth:

The phoenix or phenix (Greek: Φοίνιξ Greek pronunciation: [ˈfiniks], Armenian: Փիւնիկ, Persian: ققنوس, Arabic: العنقاء أو طائر الفينيق, Chinese: 鳳凰 or 不死鳥, Hebrew: פניקס) is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and (according to Sanchuniathon) Phoenicians.

A phoenix is a mythical bird with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends). It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (literally "sun-city" in Greek). It is said that the bird's cry is that of a beautiful song. The Phoenix's ability to be reborn from its own ashes implies that it is immortal, though in some stories the new Phoenix is merely the offspring of the older one. In very few stories they are able to change into people.


The ancient Greek historian Herodotus gave the following account of the phoenix in the fifth century BC while describing the animals of Egypt:

Another sacred bird is the one called the phoenix. Now, I have not actually seen a phoenix, except in a painting, because they are quite infrequent visitors to the country; in fact, I was told in Heliopolis that they appear only at 500-year intervals. They say that it is the death of a phoenix's father which prompts its visit to Egypt. Anyway, if the painting was reliable, I can tell you something about the phoenix's size and qualities, namely that its feathers are partly gold but mostly red, and that in appearance and size it is most like an eagle. There is a particular feat they say the phoenix performs; I do not believe it myself, but they say that the bird sets out from its homeland in Arabia on a journey to the sanctuary of the sun, bringing its father sealed in myrrh, and buries its father there.[1]

The Roman poet Ovid wrote the following about the phoenix:

Most beings spring from other individuals; but there is a certain kind which reproduces itself. The Assyrians call it the Phoenix. It does not live on fruit or flowers, but on frankincense and odoriferous gums. When it has lived five hundred years, it builds itself a nest in the branches of an oak, or on the top of a palm tree. In this it collects cinnamon, and spikenard, and myrrh, and of these materials builds a pile on which it deposits itself, and dying, breathes out its last breath amidst odors. From the body of the parent bird, a young Phoenix issues forth, destined to live as long a life as its predecessor. When this has grown up and gained sufficient strength, it lifts its nest from the tree (its own cradle and its parent's sepulchre), and carries it to the city of Heliopolis in Egypt, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun.[2]

Interesting connection with Heliopolis... considering this is the sun.

 

[anart]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

It's head is facing the same direction as this crop circle from 2009 (I think it was 2009). It's probably unrelated, of course, but since we're talking 'phoenixes':

 

[mkrnhr]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

The phoenix is also associated to cyclical destruction and resurection.

 

[Biomiast]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

There is an Iranian Sufi poet Farid ud-Din Attar that wrote a book called The Conference of the Birds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conference_of_the_Birds

The book talks about a bird that is the master of all the other birds. It is called Simurgh which is Phoenix in Persian literature. The birds decide to find Simurgh and declare him as the king of all birds. The book itself is an allegory for a Sufi's search for God, where Simurgh represents the God and the birds who travel many places and endure many hardship represents seekers. In the end, only 30 birds remain true to their calling and reach Simurgh. As a pun in Persian, "Si Murgh" means "30 birds" and those 30 birds see themselves when they are in the presence of Simurgh. They realize that Simurgh wasn't some bird that was above all of them, but by completing their journey, they all became Simurgh. When they look at him, they see themselves.

There is a piece from wikipedia entry above that summarizes the hardships birds endure and states in Sufi Way:

The birds must cross seven valleys in order to find the Simorgh: Talab (Yearning), Eshq (Love), Marifat (Gnosis), Istighnah (Detachment), Tawheed (Unity of God), Hayrat (Bewilderment) and, finally, Fuqur and Fana (Selflessness and Oblivion in God). These represent the stations that a Sufi or any individual must pass through to realize the true nature of God.

I have read the book and thought it was a good reading, and an extremely powerful Sufi work that influenced many people. Attar's name is mentioned in deep veneration in Middle East region as one of the proponents of Unity of Being ideology. He was one of the major sources Rumi was inspired.

I just read this most famous section of the book on wikipedia and I thought it was suitable for the occasion:

Come you lost Atoms to your Centre draw,
And be the Eternal Mirror that you saw:
Rays that have wander'd into Darkness wide
Return and back into your Sun subside

 

[AdamJM]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

did you also notice the picture at the top of the wiki article from the Aberdeen bestiary, and the description of said picture:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Phoenix_detail_from_Aberdeen_Bestiary.jpg

Death of a Phoenix, burning in the flames. Description from source:

The phoenix turns to face the sun, beats its wings to fan the flames and is consumed. There is some pouncing around the bird and flames. This was probably done while the manuscript was being made because it is concealed by the back of f56 being stuck to another sheet. Thus f 56 and 56v are actually 2 sheets stuck back to back. The glued backing to this sheet conceals the hole in its vellum.

Taken from the Aberdeen Bestiary Project [1], page [2].

sounds like they were describing a similar event

 

[go2]

I watched the comet streak past the sun and ignite a massive CME. For me, this is as revolutionary an image as Shoemaker-Levy hitting
Jupiter in 1994. It strains credibility to assert this event is coincidence and not causal. The comet appears enormous to my untrained eye.
Does anyone know the comet's size? Has the comet been tracked or is it a surprise from beyond the solar system?

 

[Nević Nenad]

Re: Video of "something" impacting the sun

Here is the animation of the same event:
http://spaceweather.com/images2011/05oct11/farsidecme.gif

Very cool! Thanks, mkrnhr.

It really DID look like a phoenix, the whole thing! That was totally cool! What is the legend of the phoenix?

In short: no mater how many times it gets killed, it will rise again from its own ashes.

On second thought, that would mean that the bird symbolizes something physically mortal, but also eternal.

 

[Akopirnas]

Casual citations are interesting too:

Semargl, Simargl (Old Church Slavonic: Семарьглъ, Симарьглъ) is a deity or mythical creature in East Slavic mythology. Idol of Semargl was present in the pantheon of Great Prince Vladimir I of Kiev. Probably, it is the equivalent of Simurgh in Persian mythology (probably borrowed from thence) who is also represented like a griffin with a dog body. But according to Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov, the name of Semargl comes from the Slavonic *Sedmor(o)-golvъ «with seven heads»

"Si-", the first element in the name, has been connected in folk etymology to Modern Persian si "thirty". Although this prefix is not historically related to the origin of the name simurgh, "thirty" has nonetheless been the basis for legends incorporating that number, for instance, that the simurgh was as large as thirty birds or had thirty colours (siræng).

He (Ali-Shir Nava'i) also wrote Lisan-ol-tayr (لسان الطیر or "Language of Birds", following Attar's Manteq-ol-tayr منطق الطیر or Speeches of Birds), in which he expressed his philosophical views and Sufi ideas.

...Simurg, nevertheless, is not deprived quite material plumage: in a poem “Language of birds” it is told, how, flying by over China, she has dropped a feather of an extraordinary colouring - sparkling so brightly that all China (in a poem – a city) has put on light.

Fauth (p. 125ff.) has argued that all the mythical giant birds—such as Simorḡ, Phoenix, Garuḍa, the Tibetan Khyuṅ, and also the Melek Ṭāʾus of the Yezidis—are offshoots of an archaic, primordial bird that created the world. Thus Simorḡ as God in Persian mysticism would, curiously, represent a return to the original meaning.

The Simorḡ’s equivalent in Arabic sources is the ʿAnqāʾ. The ambivalent nature of this bird is attested in the Hadith: the bird was created by God with all perfections, but became a plague, and a prophet put an end to the havoc it wrought by exterminating the species (Pellat, p. 509).

 

[Gaolea]

Wow! tht was a huge solar flare