Monday, December 13, 2010

Solar Outbursts - Earth in a Race with the Sun

TRIPLE ERUPTION: "Solar activity surged yesterday, Sunday, Dec. 12th, when the sun erupted three times in quick succession, hurling a trio of bright coronal mass ejections (CMEs) into space.

A preliminary analysis suggests that none of the CMEs will be geoeffective. The expanding clouds should miss our planet.

Are these CMEs related? According to images from NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft and the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the clouds emerged from three distinct blast sites separated by great distances. In each case, a magnetic filament erupted--one near the sun's southeastern limb (CME#1), one near the north pole (CME#2), and one on the far side of the sun (CME#3). Because all three eruptions occured within a matter of hours, the coronagraph images suggest a single 3-lobed cloud; in fact, they are distinct CMEs." Read more at spaceweather.com.

See below for a fascinating video explaining the eruption of the Sun in 2003 from CME's that caused power outages and damaged satellites, destroying two. There are several delays (bugs) in the video but it continues. This will give you a visual of CME's. Massive solar eruptions could threaten our high tech world.

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