Posted on 04/18/2008 1:05:36 PM PDT by george76
Mighty eruptions on the sun trigger bursts of sound waves that ripple across the fiery ball of gas.
The finding, which will be published in the May 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, comes from data collected with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a joint venture between NASA and ESA.
Astronomers have known that sound waves constantly trek toward the sun's interior, producing a background "ringing" of sorts. As they move through the sun's plasma, the sound waves take on a pulsing pattern of five minutes, and hence are called five-minute oscillations.
They are also called starquakes.
"It's like waves in the ocean."
"This large flare on the sun, this disturbance, shakes the sun and then it keeps vibrating for some time with these global oscillations," .
A similar phenomenon occurs on Earth in the aftermath of large earthquakes. For example, after the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman Earthquake, the whole Earth rang with seismic waves for several weeks.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
We’re talking about Marshall stacks on 10. There’s no system that compares to one.
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:’)
I have been to the sun.
Thank goodness that I went at night.
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