Posted on 04/02/2008 9:38:43 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Astronomers have captured the first footage of a solar "tsunami" hurtling through the Sun's atmosphere at over a million kilometres per hour.
The event was captured by Nasa's twin Stereo spacecraft designed to make 3D images of our parent star.
Naturally, this type of tsunami does not involve water; instead, it is a wave of pressure that travels across the Sun very fast.
Details were reported at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Belfast.
In a solar tsunami, a huge explosion near the Sun, such as a coronal mass ejection or flare, causes a pressure pulse to propagate outwards in a circular pattern.
Last year's solar tsunami, which took place on 19 May 2007, lasted for about 35 minutes, reaching peak speeds about 20 minutes after the initial blast.
Co-author David Long, from Trinity College Dublin (TCD), Ireland, commented: "The energy released in these explosions is phenomenal; about two billion times the annual world energy consumption in just a fraction of a second.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
If only Bush had signed the Kyoto Protocol...
Two billion times our output in a second eh? To think that human beings can cause global climate change is so stupid, devoid of sanity. And yet it’s the inmates that are running the asylum.
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My pleasure.
That was one big solar burp , wonder how it effected us about that time in May 2007 , anything nutso happen? may have to check it out. naaahhh. :-)
In the article, the link to Mission guide: Stereo is very worthwhile.
“We were able to show for the first time that this wave actually propagates almost all the way from the surface of the Sun to high up in the Sun’s atmosphere,” said Dr Gallagher.
Do you suppose it blows a hole in the Helium layer?
it’s kind of hard to get the scale of the burp max. height, but it may have come close if it didn’t.. it was a pretty intense episode
Wow!
Tsolar Tsunami; pretty impressive.
That clown represents about 95% of all elected offcials.
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