Categories: Missionssun

Double Explosions on the Sun Today

The Sun had a fit and popped off two large events at once early today, Jan. 28, 2011. A filament on the left side became unstable and erupted, while an M-1 flare (mid-sized) and a coronal mass ejection on the right blasted into space. Neither event was headed towards Earth. This SDO movie, which is from Jan. 26-28, 2011, shows several other flashes and bursting from the active region on the right as well.

If you remember, in December, solar physicists released their findings that near-synchronous explosions in the solar atmosphere – sometimes millions of kilometers apart – can be related.

You can see another view of the events as seen by the SOHO spacecraft below, and another version of the SDO data.

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Solar activity on Jan. 28, 2011 captured by SOHO.

Two major eruptions on the Sun occurred on Jan. 28,2011, and NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the action.

Here’s another multi-wavelength and closeup view of the events from SDO:

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/