		Site Map \| Contact Us \| Search:

JOIN

The Planetary Society Blog

By Emily Lakdawalla

Stellar explosion

Apr. 13, 2010 | 09:13 PDT | 16:13 UTC

We need your help.
Please donate to support our blog, website, and podcast.

Weblog Archive

EDIT 11:54 PDT: Replaced the animation with a better one. (Thanks, Sunspot.)

The Sun just spat out a huge coronal mass ejection, an event made visible by the watchful cameras on SOHO:

Click to enlarge >

Solar prominence on April 13, 2010
An animation of 18 images taken by SOHO's Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) ballooning away from the Sun. LASCO blocks the light of the Sun to make features in its corona visible. The white circle shows the diameter of the Sun. Credit: NASA / ESA / SOHO

(Thanks to user "sunspot" on unmannedspaceflight.com for the heads up -- that's certainly an appropriate username!)

The event is still evolving, so if you're reading this post even an hour after I post it, it would be worth your time to go to the SOHO website to see what's new. They have a cool "SOHO movie theater" Web feature that is an excellent example of how a mission can employ a simple, minimal Web interface, with no fancy, Flashy bells and whistles, to allow visitors to get quick access to the SOHO image data. If you want to make an animation that looks like the one I posted, select "LASCO C2" from the "Image Type" menu, then click "Search." It will automatically grab all the LASCO C2 images from the previous 24 hours and animate them for you. If the coronal mass ejection has wandered completely out of the LASCO C2 field of view, you might enjoy the LASCO C3 field of view instead. If you are reading this post days after I wrote it and want to go back to the time period that produced the coronal mass ejection I show above, just put in "2010-04-13" as the start date.

Post this page to:

Comments

Earthquakes and Solar Maximum

Is it possible that CMEs influence earthquakes? Within the past 5 months I have noticed a strong correlation between CMEs and earthquakes. Everytime there was a CME within a 2-3 day period there was a high magnitude earthquake somewhere on this planet. I have seen this relationship with the 3D Sun and GAquake app for the iPod. Could a calorimetry problem be used to explain how the force of a CME raises internal core tempuratures, thus more earthquakes?

#1 - Emilio Cofinco - 04/13/2010 - 19:59

Independent Scientific Researcher on Glaciers Melting & Global Warming

The Chilean quake have changed the planet's inclination angle and also the earth rotational velocity. These changes can alter and modify the solar system interactions mostly, the earth-moon-sun system. Any change within the earth structure, can change the harmony with which this bodies system interacts with the rest of the universe. Mostly within the solar system. So, to me the main cause of this abnormal events are, the oil burning, glaciers melting, climate changes and global warming. The earthquakes and solar explosions are triggered by by the oil burning companies!!!!.....

#2 - Charlie Avila - 04/13/2010 - 21:16

o.o'

"Some 400 people have died and thousands are feared injured after a magnitude-6.9 quake hit western China's Qinghai province, officials say."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8619593.stm

#3 - FRSS - 04/14/2010 - 03:38

Effects on earth?

That CME appears to have shot out "sideways" from an earth perspective. Would it have had any effect on earth bound (or earth orbitting) electronics?

What if a CME that size came directly at earth? How often does that happen?

#4 - Tony - 04/14/2010 - 09:23

These comments make me vomit in fear for the future of mankind.

#5 - Me - 04/19/2010 - 00:37


Name

E-mail (Will not appear online)

Title

Comment


To prevent automated Bots form spamming, please enter the text you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.

This comment form is powered by GentleSource Comment Script. It can be included in PHP or HTML files and allows visitors to leave comments on the website.

Emily's on Twitter! »