What were you doing on August 1st, 2010? Well, if you were the Sun, you would have been experiencing a hemisphere-wide eruption.
Back in August, half of the Sun was rocked by a series of nuclear-fueled explosions that sent shock waves across the stellar surface, shedding billions of tons of charged materials into space over a 28-hour period.
It was a massive event that shattered old ideas about solar activity.
The whole series of explody events was captured in unprecedented detail by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, giving astronomers new insights into the volatile inner workings of the Sun.
To explain what happened, solar researchers Karel Schrijver and Alan Title spent three months researching the event they have “The Great Eruption.” The entire episode may overturn the notion of solar eruptions as localized events, rather than a body-wide phenomenon.
These findings are more than mere ivory tower musings and may prove significant for researchers who predict solar “space weather,” which has the very real potential to disrupt communications, airlines, and power grids here on Earth.
via NASA
Post a Comment