The Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite captured this image yesterday. A massive filament on the Sun erupted in a stunning display as seen here in the videos below.
The giant solar eruption created a long filament of magnetic plasma, which extended an astounding 435,000 miles (700,000 kilometers). This is nearly twice the distance between the Earth and the moon, which is about 238,857 miles (384,403 kilometers)
The location of the eruption and the magnetic field configuration and direction of the eruption suggest the impact of the event on the Earth will be limited. Watch the videos below to see it happen:
Here’s a second video, showing closer detail:
From YouTube: A very long solar filament that had been snaking around the Sun erupted today (Dec. 6, 2010) with a flourish. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) caught the action in dramatic detail in extreme ultraviolet light of Helium. It had been almost a million km long ((about half a solar radius) and a prominent feature on the Sun visible over two weeks ago before it rotated out of view. Filaments are elongated clouds of cooler gases suspended above the Sun by magnetic forces. They are rather unstable and often break away from the Sun. Note: the edge of the moon can be glimpsed at 0300 UT during a brief lunar transit.
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SDO continues to astound. Why can’t all science be about new methods of data collection? When did we fall so much in love with computer simulations?
//goes back to playing video games.
fascinating
Any correlation with this?
“Zombie” satellite shuts down critical NOAA NWS systems overnight
REPLY: None, that sat was disabled by a solar flare April 3rd -Anthony
“Surprises” apart, what did it cause it?
The capacity of the sun’s magnetic field to built and sustain such long filaments should certainly tell us about the state of the sun and it’s hidden magnetic/electrical dynamo…
It’s funny that space.com said “as predicted, the a ‘mega-filament’ of solar magnetism erupted on Dec. 6th,” and that the “sun is in the midst of an extremely active period of its 11-year solar weather cycle after a long lull in activity.” Ummm… it was and it is?
Wow! and Wow!
The sun does it again.
Is that first video in real time?
Lasco2 are just as impressive
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov//data/REPROCESSING/Completed/2010/c2/20101206/20101206_2036_c2_1024.jpg
http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/daily_mpg/101206_c2.mpg
Does that mean it is going to get warmer? (*hopes*)
Was it Trenberths missing Heat?
So the…Sun…is..like,…a big ball… of like,…hot…fire?
If someone ever connects its behavior to the Earths weather,…man, that guy would like win a million Nobel prizes,…they give you a Prius too now days.
Lucky for us the ipeecac has shown zero effect between 99.99% of the remaining universe and planet Earth-nee-Gaia, AKA as Mother Earth, may go by the name Big Blue.
Looks like that prayer to Ixtel worked, wonder if theres a LOG scale for pagan prayers.
Using the measure one Cancun = one Ixtel prayer, do 100 Cancun’s = a Nova?
See they should of mentioned Quetzalcoatl, that dude is awesome, he would pooped out a white dwarf companion just on principal alone.
His Kung Fu is strong.
rob m.,
I thought the same thing. The first video, at least, must be in fast forward mode since it would take around 2.3 seconds for light to travel the distance Anthony says the solar filament approached.
re:
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This sentence only raised my curiosity as a result of my passing interest in physics. How do we know there will be limited effect? Yes, a direct flare pointed towards us could be expected to cause problems due to various higher energy fluxes, etc. However, is the plasma/energy emitted by a ‘non-directed’ flare ALL lost to space away from the Earth? Is not some of it captured/redirected and ‘channelled’ or ‘guided’ (if you will) into the solar systems’ magnetic and gravitational fields and thus ‘thrown about and distributed’, and thus perhaps into our general proximity (either now – or as we orbit round the sun?).
What I found myself wondering, basically, was ‘is this energy gonna affect us in a few months or years?’ – and therefore querying the original sentence. Will scientists be thinking ‘where did all this energy come from in a few months or years’ when their instruments show an increase, but no direct observed flare, for example? And thus, in relation to the TSI and climate effects, etc – is this kind of stuff taken into consideration?
apologies for sounding vague or stupid – but it was just one of those dumb blonde what if moments….
Anthony, here’s an excellent and timely companion article/issue to go with this solar filament article; Solar Storm Weather Forecasts and Warnings (p.s., do I get a hat tip for posting the solar flair to tips 9:40 am? Please, not if you found it elsewhere or were already working on it of course!): http://www.space.com/businesstechnology//nasa-solar-shield-sun-storms-101108.html
I did a quick search and didn’t find anything already posted on this issue, but could have missed something (hope not).
NASA’s Solar Shield to Protect Power Grids From Sun Storms
By Nola Redd SPACE.com Contributor posted: 08 November 2010 07:05 am ET
NASA has devised a new tool in the battle against massive eruptions from the sun: an early warning system to protect electrical grids on Earth from extremely powerful solar storms.
The new project, called Solar Shield, is designed to predict the severity of powerful sun storms at specific locations on Earth to help power companies plan responses and limit the potential damage to their equipment.
“It amounts to knowing ‘something is coming and it may be big,'” said project leader Antti Pulkkinen, a research associate at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., told SPACE.com. But Solar Shield should provide “much more specificity.”
Massive sun eruptions
The chief target for NASA’s Solar Shield are huge sun eruptions called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which can shoot off billions of tons of plasma and charged particles…..
When the magnetic field associated with a CME encounters the Earth’s magnetic field, the two merge and an enormous amount of energy is transferred to the geomagnetosphere. This resulting current can affect astronauts or satellites in space, as well as commercial power grids.
If the CME is strong enough, the grids can become overburdened or damaged. The resulting blackout could last anywhere from hours to months, depending on the amount of damage sustained.
Strong CMEs are classified as low-frequency/high-impact events, meaning that while they are rare, their consequences are far-reaching, researchers said.
A 2008 workshop by the National Research Council’s Space Studies Board predicted that a “severe geomagnetic storm scenario” would have societal and economic costs of up to $2 trillion in the first year alone, and recovery time ranging from four to 10 years.
The predictions from NASA’s Solar Shield could potentially help avoid the worst of the damage, researchers said.
The project aims to minimize the effects by providing both short- and long-term predictions regarding impending CMEs. Today, scientists can tell when an ejection is headed towards Earth, but the data is very generalized. [Amazing Photos of Recent Sun Storms]….. (full article online)
VUK ETC says:
Wow that was impressive! I can imagine what an even larger one would do to us if it hit us. We should be spending some of our wasted “climate” money on harding our electrical grid and making preparations for the event if we do get zapped. Arthur C. Clarke talked about this years ago.
[SNIP – no electric universe, iron sun, discussion on WUWT ~mod]
Large but it seems rather light.
Filaments of the Earth: Elves and sprites
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_sprites_elves.htm
ShaneCMuir says:
December 7, 2010 at 3:05 pm
[SNIP – no electric universe, iron sun, discussion on WUWT ~mod]
That´s not a good Marketing policy: The more discussions, the more hits!
REPLY: If I was after hits, I’d post porn. Get your own blog if you want to discuss the stuff. – Anthony
Cool. The new owner of the Sun should be proud of such of a display
Nothing to see here; things like that can’t affect me here on earth.
Question. just how much REAL TIME is in those videos ??
This is the second such very long filament the sun has produced in the last 6 months or so. I’d be curious to know if this kind of long filament production is normal or very rare? Is this an indication of the current general sluggishness of the sun, (i.e. were such filaments common as Cycle 23 was getting underway?) It would of course be really great to know if such filaments were common in cycles before the Dalton or Maunder Minimums, but of course no such data exists…
George E. Smith says:
December 7, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Question. just how much REAL TIME is in those videos ??
Several hours. Watch the time ticker at the bottom of the frame.
The December data are added to the charts today. Sol’s radio flux and # of sunspots are not increasing much.
http://www.solarcycle24.com/trends.htm