This is worth viewing the
video. For the first time we see a
coronal explosion at an angle that shows largely what is happening. Slowly but surely we are getting excellent data
on the sun.
Sun Unleashes 'Spectacular' & Powerful Eruption
by Tariq Malik, SPACE.com Managing Editor
Date: 07 June 2011 Time: 02:21 PM ET
Coronal mass ejection as viewed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on
June 7, 2011.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO
CREDIT: NASA/SDO
The sun unleashed a massive solar storm today (June 7) in a dazzling
eruption that kicked up a vast cloud of magnetic plasma that appeared to rain
back down over half of the sun's entire surface, NASA scientists say.
The solar
storm hit its peak at about 2:41 a.m. EDT (0641 GMT), but the actual
flare extended over a three-hour period, said C. Alex Young, a solar
astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who runs a website
called The Sun Today, in a video
describing the event.
"The sun produced a quite spectacular prominence eruption that had
a solar flare and high-energy particles associated with it, but I've just never
seen material released like this before," Young said. "It looks like
somebody just kicked a giant clod of dirt into the air and then it fell back
down." [Video: See
the sun's June 7 solar flare and eruption]
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft caught high-definition
video of the flare in different wavelengths. The event registered as a Class
M-2 solar flare, which is a medium-class sun storm that should not pose a
danger to satellites or infrastructure on Earth.
An alert by the NOAA-operated
Space Weather
Prediction Center
stated that the solar flare could create a strong geomagnetic storm on
Wednesday (June 9) from the event's coronal
mass ejection (CME), an explosion of charged particles triggered by
the flare. Geomagnetic storms can lead to stronger than normal displays of
Earth's auroras, also known as the northern and southern lights.
"It's nothing we really have to worry about," Young said in
his video. "It's just really, really beautiful."
The coronal mass ejection is directed at Earth and moving at about 3.1
million mph (5 million kph), SDO mission scientists said in a statement.
"Due to its angle, however, effects on Earth should be fairly
small. Nevertheless, it may generate space weather effects here on Earth in a
few days," they added.
In the SDO videos, the solar flare erupts from the lower right of the
sun and triggers the intense coronal mass ejection, which blows plasma and
particles high up into the sun's corona — its outer atmosphere — with some
raining back down.
SDO mission scientists said the flare kicked up relatively cool gas and
material.
"It is somewhat unique because at many places in the eruption
there seems to be even cooler material —at temperatures less than 80,000
Kelvin," SDO scientists explained.
A temperature of 80,000 Kelvin is about 143,540 degrees Fahrenheit
(nearly 79,727 degrees Celsius). The sun's corona typically has temperatures
ranging from 900,000 degrees F (500,000 degrees C) to 10.8 million degrees F (6
million degrees C). It can reach tens of millions of degrees when a solar flare
occurs.
The sun is currently going through an active period in it is 11-year
solar weather cycle. The current cycle is called solar
cycle 24.
Several NASA spacecraft are keeping constant watch on the sun for
flares and CMEs, and serve as an early-warning system for major space weather
events.
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