Posted on 04/07/2005 2:46:41 PM PDT by Truth666
A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held above the Sun´s surface by the Sun´s magnetic field. The Earth would easily fit under one of the loops of the prominence shown in the above picture. Although thought by many to be related to the magnetic field, the energy mechanism behind a Solar prominence is unknown.
Does this mean there will be 'Northern Lights'? If so, WHEN?
Bump for later.
QSL, I checked the X-ray graph from NOAA, and yes, this was a very minor flare. Nice pix fer sure. Since we have SOHO watching the sun 24/7, it can catch these events when they happen now.
A recent issue (last year, I think) of National Geographic had a set of very good articles on the Sun that had an explanation of Coronal Mass Ejections (CME's).
QSL, I checked the X-ray graph from NOAA, and yes, this was a very minor flare. Nice pix fer sure. Since we have SOHO watching the sun 24/7, it can catch these events when they happen now. No, we won't see any AU as this was not aimed at us.
Nah! The Dodge Ram symbol is based directly on the layout of a women's reproductive system.
At least that's what my wife told me!
LOL!
The Pope is going out in a blaze of glory!
As humbling as it is beautiful. Simply Wow.
The link did not work because the poster had this symbol ^ immediately after the .gif in the URL. If you remove the ^ the URL works.
An international group of scientists led by the Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL), University College London, has discovered important new evidence that points to the cataclysmic events that trigger a solar flare and the mechanisms that drive its subsequent evolution.
The new results, described at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham by Dr. Louise Harra of MSSL, were obtained by using the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft to study an X-7 class flare -one of the most powerful solar flares of recent years- which exploded on the Sun´s surface on 15 July 2002.
Detailed analysis shows that the 15 July 2002 flare was a complex event with three eruptions -each one triggering the next one like a domino effect. The solar flare´s explosive power was 5,000 million times greater than an atomic bomb, hurling a billion tonnes of hot gas towards the Earth at speeds of around half a million miles an hour.
The SOHO data show that the explosion was triggered by the sudden emergence of a strongly magnetised gas (plasma) from below the Sun´s surface, close to an existing region of strong magnetic field. When the magnetic fields in these two regions collided, they released phenomenal amounts of energy.
The data showed that the entrained gas was heated to a temperature of up to 20 million degrees Celsius before it soared into the solar atmosphere - the corona - at a speed of 90,000 mph.
The analysis of this flare contradicts the standard model of how flares are created. Until now, it has been believed that magnetic field lines from the core of the active region become entangled and reconnect high in the corona.
"In the case of the July 2002 flare, magnetic reconnection had to occur over a much wider area than expected," explained Dr. Harra. "The data show that small-scale magnetic disturbances around the main active region snowballed until they broke through the weak field that blanketed the region.
"This magnetic build-up swept away the existing magnetic field lines that overlay the entire active region, so allowing the core field to reconnect. We were able to measure this by looking for flashes of ultraviolet light and fast-flowing gas.
"This is important, because we have observed the flows of hot gas for the first time, enabling us to see that several small flares combine to create a major explosion.
The necessity of evil humans to pretend that they know something more, as God allows them to see something more about the mysteries of His Creation.
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