Technologies

That’s Hot: Check Out This Video of the Sun’s Corona in All Its Glory

The corona dances playfully as its temperatures approach 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit.

Last month’s total solar eclipse wasn’t the only fun with the sun skygazers are enjoying this year. The European Science Agency has just dropped a hot new video of the sun’s corona, which is the upper layer of the sun’s atmosphere. The agency’s solar orbiter recorded the footage on Sept. 23, 2023, and the group has annotated the 30-second video to give viewers some context into what they’re looking at.

Just a few seconds in, you’ll get a glimpse of some coronal moss, a bright gas that makes lacy patterns across the sun. A few seconds later, the ESA points out spicules along the horizon — spires of gas that reach up through the sun’s chromosphere. These spires can reach heights of 10,000 kilometers, or approximately 6,200 miles. The video also captures what appears to be a small eruption at the 22-second mark. «Small» is relative, as the ESA notes that the eruption was larger than Earth.

Read more: How an Apple Watch Saved the Solar Eclipse for Me

The clip ends with a glimpse of coronal rain, which is made up of high-density clumps of plasma that sizzles at a temperature around 10,000 degrees Celsius (18,032 Fahrenheit). For context, the brighter coronal loop around the rain is burning at 1 million degrees Celsius (1.8 million Fahrenheit). In short, rain showers on the sun are insane.

Snake crossing the sun

As a whole, this is some of the best video footage we puny humans have ever seen of the sun. It comes courtesy of the ESA’s solar orbiter and its extreme ultraviolet imager, launched as part of the agency’s mission to capture close-up images of the sun in ways never before seen. The mission began in 2020 with the launch of the solar orbiter, and nabbed amazing images of the sun in 2022, along with some footage of Earth, Mars and Venus.

Arguably, the most intense footage so far was that of a massive solar eruption that extended millions of kilometers into space, and later footage that looks like a snake slithering across the sun. According to NASA, which assists the ESA, the snake effect was caused by the intermingling of plasma and the sun’s magnetic field.

The mission has also given us the first-ever close-up images of the sun’s polar regions and measurements of the sun’s solar winds that were impossible to take on Earth.

Read more: Total Solar Eclipse 2024: The Best Photos We’ve Seen

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.