Solar Tsunami

Excerpt from "Attack of the Sun." The SOHO spacecraft has recorded the effect of all this rising energy. Its ultraviolet sensors show a wavy pattern of gas on the sun's surface, along with the super-hot halo of gas called the corona.

The white regions are places where the rising gas suddenly escapes.

Immense loops of ionized gas, ten times the diameter of Earth, rise and fall back. These solar prominences are hot, about 60,000 degrees Celsius.

But there are times when the release of energy on the solar surface gets bottled up, by magnetic fields generated by the sun's spinning turbulent core.

Using data from the sun's exterior, scientists have modeled these fields as they erupt all around the sun's surface, twisting and looping.

Heat rising toward the surface follows these magnetic field lines, which can also stifle the rising columns, forming relatively cool patches.

That's where sunspots form. Four centuries ago, Galileo Galilei was the first to argue that these blotches were actually on the Sun's surface, though he suspected they were clouds.

Their nature remained unclear until 1908, when the astronomer George Ellery Hale demonstrated the link between sunspots and intense magnetic fields.

Over the years, scientists have drawn their strange shapes in an effort to understand them.

What they didn't see, until recently, was the heat and pressure building around them.

Using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, scientists are learning to read undulations on the surface of the sun, the result of pressure waves ricocheting through its volume.

Like the study of earthquakes on Earth, this field, called Heliosiesmology, is a window on the movements of gas inside the sun. It's also generating predictions of flares and sunspots, including those forming on the far side.

Detectors aboard the SOHO spacecraft have managed to catch the moment when the energy capped by a sunspot is suddenly released.

A shock wave travels rapidly outward, like a solar tsunami, with enough force to circle the star.

That signals the start of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a massive eruption of particles and hot gas.

With a coronagraph to block out the bright light of the sun, you can see how violent our sun can get.

If a CME is detected blasting out from behind this artificial eclipse, you know that satellites and power systems on Earth are going to get hit hard, especially if it has been launched in the direction of where Earth will be in its orbit in about 24 to 36 hours.

The sun sends a wave of energetic particles that will crash into Earth's magnetic field.

And as more and more of the ground around Earth gets carpeted with conductive metal, the chances are that all that juice will "fry" something vital to humanity.

Category:

• Science & Tech
• Documentary
• Nature

Produced by:

• Thomas Lucas
• Dave Brody

Tags:

• solar
• flare
• science
• space
• sun
• computers
• stars
• satellites
• telescope
• galaxies
• supernova
• jupiter
• comet
• saturn
• black hole
• nasa
• esa
• montreal
• einstein
• hawking
• venus
• mars
• corona
• coronal
• mass
• ejection
• cme
• sunspot
• hale
• nuclear
• tsunami
• astronomy
• universe
• nebula
• documentary
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• nature
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• alien
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• shuttle
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[damoos]

Soooooo many retards on the internet these days.. *sigh*

[MrMadness87]

spacerip vids give me multiple coronal mass ejections

[zachattack13210]

The soundtrack to this video is fucking deadly... iLLL

[HellFreakRIP]

If I kick a football through the fire the ball won't catch the fire unless if I place it in a burning pile of wood where the fire points upwards. Lit a match stick and think why the fire at the tip points upwards and not downwards while gravity works on all objects. Now think why does a solar flare flies and comes towards the direction of gravity in this infinte universe. 70 % of earth is covered with water but not my football so the earth is safer than football.

[tomsita83]

lol what a bullshit!!! see "Thunderbolts of the Gods " at YT and you will know why...

[15firekid]

sun spots are holes in the sun so why are thay dark and not very bright

[swampdonkeeyy]

bet your reading this during the ads

[mushroomagical]

@KrakDag Actually, it a god...one among many....

[TheANRProductions]

@damoos actually we are ignorant. ignorant means not knowing without having the chance to learn. we are here to learn, leave jackass.

[sirsagan]

@KrakDag so true, the sun gave the earth life and without it we would die... not that this has anything to do with religion ;)