Spectacular prominence eruption on the sun! Don’t miss this!
June 7th, 2011
This morning, Jack Ireland of NASA Goddard’s Helioviewer Project sent an email alerting us to a “spectacular” event still in progress on the sun. It was a huge prominence eruption, marked by a solar flare and release of energetic particles. It looks like a fountain of plasma that blasts out of the solar surface, spreads outward, and collapses to splat back down.
Here is video courtesy Helioviewer.org and a narration by The Sun Today.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________ OH AND DID I MENTION? All opinions and opinionlike objects in this blog are mine alone and NOT those of NASA or Goddard Space Flight Center. And while we’re at it, links to websites posted on this blog do not imply endorsement of those websites by NASA.
Yes, definitely! It happened over several hours (it takes a lot of energy to move blobs of plasma the size of Earth). Typically we chose a time-step rate of 30 minutes to make the videos from SDO space images.
Yes, definitely! It happened over several hours (it takes a lot of energy to move blobs of plasma the size of Earth). Typically I chose a time-step rate of 30 minutes in JHelioviewer to make the videos from SDO space images.
@Brian
It’s hard to exactly say how many Earth masses were ejected, but certainly it is “many.” To get an idea of the monumental scale of this, check out the Sun-Earth comparison I made in this post: http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5651
@Nick
Thanks for the comment. I am very glad you enjoyed the commentary. It is very exciting to share what I and my colleagues do and I look forward to making many more videos. I do this in my spare time outside of my work at NASA. All the comments and questions around the video are great and I am working hard to get to them all. Best, Alex
Moments before the explosion, I am not sure how long it occurred in actual time there seems to be something falling towards the source’s center arriving at a nearly 45 degree angle. I am not to familiar with how a sun works so I can not tell if that is a form of magnetic energy or possibly foreign material entering the atmosphere, but it can be seen far more easily in the closer view on this website.
Very cool! Thanks for sharing!
Is this video sped up? It looks like it must be, as the speeds the matter seems to be traveling at is completely absurd!
Yes, definitely! It happened over several hours (it takes a lot of energy to move blobs of plasma the size of Earth). Typically we chose a time-step rate of 30 minutes to make the videos from SDO space images.
Yes, definitely! It happened over several hours (it takes a lot of energy to move blobs of plasma the size of Earth). Typically I chose a time-step rate of 30 minutes in JHelioviewer to make the videos from SDO space images.
Thank you so much for this and the commentary. It’s things like this where I feel like NASA is giving back to me as the average citizen.
Wow, Thanks for sharing
I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.
Awesome!!!
Looks like the ones from that movie, 2012.
Nooooooohhhhhh! Not 2012 again!
Sun fart!
(my apologies for the descent into crassness – but it is what I thought when I watched the eruption)
Well, it IS a gaseous emission, so I suppose you are on the right track. But it’s like thousands of degrees hot, so that might hurt.
Dear Sun,
please don’t kill us.
Sincerely,
Earth.
I pardon you! –Sun
How far was the material ejected into space? How many earths would fit in that “hole”?
@Brian
It’s hard to exactly say how many Earth masses were ejected, but certainly it is “many.” To get an idea of the monumental scale of this, check out the Sun-Earth comparison I made in this post:
http://geeked.gsfc.nasa.gov/?p=5651
Amazing, huh?
Will this result in Aurora Borealis for the Nothern United States?
It’s possible. Keep watching spaceweather.com for announcements.
Spectacular! Thanks for sharing!
@Nick
Thanks for the comment. I am very glad you enjoyed the commentary. It is very exciting to share what I and my colleagues do and I look forward to making many more videos. I do this in my spare time outside of my work at NASA. All the comments and questions around the video are great and I am working hard to get to them all. Best, Alex
Best that I have seen yet. Thank you..
Wuao, it`s fantastic the Nuclear reactions of the Sun!!!… Charles Escalante!!!…
Moments before the explosion, I am not sure how long it occurred in actual time there seems to be something falling towards the source’s center arriving at a nearly 45 degree angle. I am not to familiar with how a sun works so I can not tell if that is a form of magnetic energy or possibly foreign material entering the atmosphere, but it can be seen far more easily in the closer view on this website.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/
I watched it several times and there does not seem to be anything coming from any other angle.
I can’t quite see anything coming IN to the solar atmosphere, sorry. But it could be some apparent motion due to magnetic fields.