Posted on 07/19/2013 6:21:23 PM PDT by Windflier
Damn. We've seen us some solar eruption videos in our day, but this here's a sight to behold.
We've got some incredible photo and video for you here, so pay attention — you don't want to miss any of this.
Up top you'll find some downright gorgeous footage of a coronal mass ejection (a roiling whip of plasma, hurled from an active region on the Sun). It was shot by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory during an intense solar storm on August 31.
Down below we've featured a series of still images from the explosion, and first up is one that should help you put the size of this eruption into perspective.
This "long filament of solar material," as NASA calls it, was spotted tearing away from the Sun at upwards of 900 miles per second. Yes, per second; this CME, as is typical of super-hot plasma filaments that are flung from the sun, was hauling serious ass. It was also freaking enormous — plenty big enough to wrap itself around the Earth a few times — not to mention a few other planets — and still have some plasma left over:
I was in the bunker.
That thing was big enough to knock the socks off of Jupiter.
Much appreciated. It's been my tagline since before I was a Freeper.
Come on up and see us in August when it's 107 degrees in the shade. I guarantee you, even an Aussie will appreciate that heat.
Piffle - 107deg.? Okay, Fall.
Pics needed for confirmation...
I understand the skepticism. I'm originally from Southern California, where summer temps can hit 113F or higher. I really thought I knew heat until I moved to Texas.
Friends out here tried to warn me that it was unlike the heat on the west coast, but I just laughed. Later that first summer, I thought I was living on the surface of the sun.
Okay, I’m down with the whole machete = toothpick thing but really, here in Texas we know the heat. There ain’t no getting use to it ‘till winter and that’s that. Period. And winter is just cool.
Just funnin’ as you would say. But yeah, I know the heat you’re talking about. Here’s it’s a dry heat. With flies. You don’t know flies until you’ve experienced them here. They swarm. Not the individual onesies or twosies - but swarm. Then you have the heat.
whoa.
Thanks Windflier, extra to APoD members.
Darned if you weren't righhhthhataAAARRRRRRFGGGGHGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Yep. The Texas summer fried the west coast arrogance right out of my behind. Made me a humble man, it did.
Yeah, it's the added humidity in the air in Texas that makes it seem like you're being boiled alive. The temps may get higher where I'm from, but like Australia, it's a dry heat.
It's the most amazing body in the solar system. Funny that we learned so little about it in school.
If that CME had hit us, we all would have melted just like that. Or, gone up in a puff of smoke.
...Obama issues an Executive Order to the Sun...
....to increase it's magnetic field....
and make a good crop of sunspots before elections in 2016....
(PhysOrg.com) -- Sunspot formation is triggered by a magnetic field, which scientists say is steadily declining. They predict that by 2016 there may be no remaining sunspots, and the sun may stay spotless for several decades.
The last time the sunspots disappeared altogether was in the 17th and 18th century, and coincided with a lengthy cool period on the planet known as the Little Ice Age....and lasted 400 years.
Good luck surviving with no electricity and GE modified seeds.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news203746768.html#jCp
That’s certainly true about ‘dry heat’. Our 95+ degree temps with 20% humidity here in the Santa Clara valley are a.darned sight more comfortable than cooler temps with 90% humidity. At least your sweat can evaporate. (and it cools off nicely at night)
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