Heliophysicists announced today that new data processing techniques have enabled them to track solar storms from their origin in the Sun’s fiery corona all the way to impact with the Earth in unprecedented detail. “For the first time we’ve been able to image a coronal mass ejection all the way through its entire life cycle, from inside the solar corona until it reaches Earth,” said Craig DeForest, speaking at a NASA press briefing. DeForest is the lead author paper published in the Astrophysical Journal.
Continue reading “Enhanced Technique for Tracking Solar Storms All the Way From Sun to Earth”
SDO’s Guide to Solar Flares
X-Class, M-Class, C-Class… What does it all that mean, and just what is a solar flare? This video from the Solar Dynamics Observatory tells all about solar flares and how they might affect us here on Earth. Find out why NASA and NOAA are constantly monitoring the Sun for activity that could create long lasting radiation storms which can harm satellites, communications systems, and even ground-based technologies and power grids.
Sun Erupts with Largest Solar Flare of the Cycle
Early Tuesday morning (August 9, 2011,) the Sun erupted with the largest solar flare of Cycle 24, registering as an X7-class flare. This flare had an X-ray magnitude of X6.9, meaning it was more than 3 times larger than the previous largest flare of this solar cycle – the X2.2 that occurred on Feb 15, 2011, NASA said. The source was Sunspot 1263 which is nearing the western limb of the Sun, and because of its location, scientists do not anticipate that this explosion will hit Earth directly. Therefore, the impact on communications and electric grids will likely (and luckily) be minimal.
Continue reading “Sun Erupts with Largest Solar Flare of the Cycle”
How Big Are Solar Flares?
With the recent activity on the Sun, we’ve used the words “massive” or “huge” to describe solar flares. But just how big are they, really? This great video explains and illustrates the actual size of solar flares.
Thanks to Scott Stevenson for creating and sending us the video. Scott notes that text subtitles are available if you click on the “CC” button on the bottom of the video screen, making this informative video accessible to a wider audience.
Solar Storm Heading Our Way
Early today, (Aug 3, 2011) two active regions on the Sun, sunspot 1261 and 1263 unleashed solar flares, which was captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The above video shows an M6 class flare from 1261 in a couple of different wavelengths. SolarstormWatch, a citizen science project through the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England predicts the solar storm from the larger flare to reach Earth at 15:00 UTC on August 5, 2011, and also predict direct hit on Earth.
See below for a graph of the activity:
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Solar storms are a concern if they hit Earth directly since under the right conditions, they can create extra electrical currents in Earth’s magnetosphere. The electrical power grid is vulnerable to any extra currents, which can infiltrate high-voltage transmission lines, causing transformers to overheat and possibly burn out.
Check SpaceWeather.com and the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center for more information.
Activity Heating Up on the Sun!
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The summer Sun (for us in the northern hemisphere) is getting active! Here are images and videos of recent activity, which include sunspots and an M-class flare. Above is a close-up look at four active regions taken by César Cantú from the Chilidog Observatory in Monterrey, Mexico.
Below, see a strong but brief M9-class solar flare which occurred on July 31, 2011 from Active Region 1261, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Scientists from SDO say that because it was brief it appears not to have hurled a large coronal mass ejection (CME) outwards.
Here’s a comparative look at the sunspots from August 1, 2011, taken by César Cantú from the Chilidog Observatory in Mexico. “Taking advantage of the program that I could attach Lucam Recorder in AVI (video) different bands of light, here is this comparative look in negative, white light, the calcium band and hydrogen-alpha band,” said Cantú. He used a 90 Coronado telescope and camera with dual ektalon DMK41.
See more at the Chilidog Observatory website, Astronomía Y Astrofotografía.
Here’s a video clip from SDO showing an interesting alignment of three good-sized sunspot groups that appear to be marching across the Sun, taken July 28-29, 2011.
See more, and keep up with all the activity on the Sun at the SDO website.
SDO Finds the Man in the Sun
We all know about the Man in the Moon, but the Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft has now detected an old man in the Sun, too. He was there, at least back on Dec. 9, 2010 when these images were taken, but has since disappeared. In different wavelengths, at times he appears happy, mischievous or even downright angry.
The movie underscores the fact that images taken at different wavelengths do reveal different features. The different wavelengths are shown in order from the lowest temperature material being imaged to the highest. The images also start at the Sun’s surface and gradually move out to the Sun’s upper corona.
SDO never fails to inform as well as amuse!
Awesome Astrophotos: A Negative Sun
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Here’s an unusual if not stunning way to look at the Sun: César Cantu from the Chilidog Observatory in Mexico has taken a few images of the Sun, and reversed the colors, or made a negative. This increases the contrast and allows structures to be seen — or at least stand out — that otherwise are not visible.
“The picture is made under normal procedure,” César tells us. He creates an Avi file, then reverses the colors, and also applies false color, leaving the sky to look blue and the Sun to yellow-orange and the chromosphere as red. “This is to delight the author!” César says.
The solar prominences, in all sorts of shapes and sizes, really stand out.
Below, you can see a comparison of “normal” image which has then been “negativised.”
Thanks to César for sharing his stunning images. See more at his website, Astronomía Y Astrofotografía.
Recent Sun Activity: Plasma Fountains, Sun-Grazing Comet
Interesting activity captured on the Sun early today (July 12, 2011) showing an active region on the Sun’s Eastern limb. Plasma was hurled very high above the stellar surface, but didn’t have the needed escape velocity and most of the plasma “rained” back down in a fountain. The video shows the activity in different wavelengths.
See below for more views, including the first time a sun-grazing comet was seen disintegrating over the Sun’s surface.
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This great ground-based look at the Sun is from July 11, 2011. “A sun a little more active than the past few days, although with much mist in the city, making it impossible to get photos of larger increases,” said Cesar Cantu from Monterrey, Mexico, with his Chilidog Observatory. See more at his website, Astronomía Y Astrofotografía.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory AIA imager spotted a sun-grazing comet zooming across the face of the sun and disintegrating over about a 15 minute period on July 6, 2011. This has never observed before. It’s a little difficult to see, but look closely as a line of light appears in the right just off the edge of the Sun and move across to the left. The angle of the comet’s orbit brought it across the front half of the Sun.Given the intense heat and radiation, the comet simply evaporated away completely. SDO scientists say the comet was probably a member of the Kreutz sun-grazer family. The AIA imager took this video in extreme ultraviolet.
The Sun’s Heartbeat
Within our own lives, one of the most powerful forces is that of the Sun. Directly or indirectly, it provides all of the energy we use on a daily basis. Yet this mass of incandescent plasma is often a mere afterthought. But not to be forgotten, writer for Astronomy magazine, Bob Berman makes the Sun the focus of a new book, The Sun’s Heartheat which explores how our parent star affects our lives in ways more direct than we might expect. The book is due to be released July 13th, but I got a review copy to tell everyone about.
The book is a short read clocking in at a quick 20 chapters. Roughly the first third of them is a brief history of solar astronomy. Most of this is concentrated on the history of observations of sunspots. It goes through the initial discoveries, the waxing and waning of popularity of sunspots thanks to the Maunder minimum, and Schwabe’s discovery of the cycles.
Once that’s ironed out, we get to what I consider to be the main theme of the book: How does the Sun affect us here on Earth? The first topics addressed are rather germane: The sun brings life, but too much of it can kill you. But after that, the topics are a bit more interesting. There’s a fantastic chapter on the importance of getting adequate supplies of vitamin D which your body produces naturally from exposure to the Sun. Another chapter deals with the way the Sun doesn’t affect us: Astrologically. The book discusses our ability to see colors and the impressiveness of total solar eclipses and auroras.
The second to last chapter covers just how much peril we face from a large coronal mass ejection. I was familiar with nearly everything in the book, including this chapter, but I think this chapter was my favorite. Sadly, most people are disinterested in science, but more than any other, this one was tangible enough to be rather alarming.
It closes with a preview of the future Sun, describing how its slow increase in brightness will make life on Earth unfavorable in a billion years or so and how it will eventually expand into a red giant.
If you’re an experienced astronomy enthusiast, this book will likely offer little new information on the Sun itself, although it does have lots of good backstories on some of the discoveries and those involved. It is engaging thanks to a friendly tone, even if Berman does have an odd fascination with anachronisms (17th century HMO’s?). The book lacked several of the deeper topics that I feel could have been more inviting for advanced readers such as a more thorough description of our knowledge of the innards of the Sun thanks to helioseismology. I suspect this is because it didn’t relate strongly enough to the main thesis aside from a general, how the Sun works which doesn’t focus on how it affects us.
But if you know a young astronomer, or someone older just getting into the field, or someone that’s stared only at deep sky objects and never thought much about the closest star to home, this book would likely be of some interest.