-
Solar flame
This afternoon, an extremely powerful solar flame was seen on the sun. The UV- and rontgen-radiation released is the most intense ever measured. The 'stream' is on its way to earth at 1000km / s, and should reach us on Wednesday or Thursday.
The radiation won't be harmful for us (most of it will be absorbed by the atmosphere), but satellites that happen to be in its way will suffer from it. Passengers on plane flights might be subject to radiation as powerfull as an x-ray at the doctor's.
Radiocommunication, GPS and cellphones may be affected by this.
And since the particles will be absorbed by the atmoshpere, we'll get to see a lot of northern light!
NASA put some SOHO satellite-streams on its site, but the server is either overloaded or just extremely slow. I put the last images from SOHO on my server (2.85MB, mpeg).
-
Interesting. That is a storm on the surface of the sun though right?
-
well interesting but i've heard that these comes after every 11 years or so?
-
-
:) Thanks all for the links. Amazing images dont you think?? /Armed\, yes this
is the sun in all its glory.
-
WOW! I used to be really big in astronomy, but I stopped a few years ago. However, this kinda brought me back. Its truely increadible seeing the power of nature. I find that I get too wrapped up in how 'powerful' the new computing technology is, then I get a reality check like this when our friendly star gets a bit of a temper for being ignored. ;) Sorry Mr. Sun, or Mrs, whatever... :)
The one video that was 18mb was really cool, seeing the explosion, and then all them particles make the image go fuzzy with straight lines. I'm guessing those were like x-rays or something? Gamma rays? Alpha particles? lol, I just learned that in Chem a few weeks ago and already forgot! :( Oh well. Its still really cool!
I find it kinda odd too how the press here in Canada hasn't really picked up on it, as far as I've seen at least. Maybe they don't want to freak ppl out and cause a state of panic? lol, this could be a whole new discussion, but oh well. If it wasn't for this thread, I never would have known. Thanks! Mmmmmm, uber power of the sun! <<gets excited>>
Dave
