Solar Flare Surprise:Solar flares are the most powerful explosions in the solar system. Packing a punch equal to a hundred million hydrogen bombs, they obliterate everything in their immediate vicinity. Not a single atom should remain intact. At least that's how it's supposed to work... The event occurred on Dec. 5, 2006. A large sunspot rounded the sun's eastern limb and with little warning it exploded. On the "Richter scale" of flares, which ranks X1 as a big event, the blast registered X9, making it one of the strongest flares of the past 30 years... NASA's twin Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft made the discovery: "It was a burst of hydrogen atoms," says Mewaldt. "No other elements were present, not even helium (the sun's second-most abundant atomic species). Pure hydrogen streamed past the spacecraft for a full 90 minutes." Next came 30 minutes of quiet. The burst subsided and STEREO's particle counters returned to low levels. The event seemed to be over when a second wave of particles enveloped the spacecraft. These were the "broken atoms" flares are supposed to produce--protons and heavier ions such as helium, oxygen and iron. "Better late than never," he says.
Stream Of Perfectly Intact Hydrogen Atoms Detected
by AUTHOR
ScienceDaily
Monday, December 15, 2008
Sounds like a good place to go to recharge your fuel cells.