Solar Tsunami!

[n2doc]

Monster Waves on the Sun are Real (w/ Video)
November 25, 2009 by Dr. Tony Phillips

A solar tsunami seen by the STEREO spacecraft from orthogonal points of view. The gray part of the animation has been contrast-enhanced by subtracting successive pairs of images, resulting in a "difference movie."


Sometimes you really can believe your eyes. That's what NASA's STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) spacecraft are telling researchers about a controversial phenomenon on the sun known as the "solar tsunami."

Years ago, when solar physicists first witnessed a towering wave of hot plasma racing along the sun's surface, they doubted their senses. The scale of the thing was staggering. It rose up higher than Earth itself and rippled out from a central point in a circular pattern millions of kilometers in circumference. Skeptical observers suggested it might be a shadow of some kind—a trick of the eye—but surely not a real wave.
"Now we know," says Joe Gurman of the Solar Physics Lab at the Goddard Space Flight Center. "Solar tsunamis are real."

more:

http://www.physorg.com/news178395416.html

[Warpy]

1. Why wouldn't they think an explosion of super hot plasma

would create a shock wave through the photosphere?

[Richard D]

2. I really hate to say this . . .

. . . but it does look like the sun ate the cosmic equivalent of too many beans.

[Thor_MN]

10. You suggest that the sun has gas?

[timeforpeace]

3. Makes it hard to believe sun activity isn't involved in global warming/cooling mechanisms.

[greenman3610]

4. the sun is, of course, involved in global temperature

it's just not what's been changing the temperature over the last 50 years.
good instrumentation like this has been recording pretty closely.

[glitch]

8. DUzy. nt

[FirstLight]

5. Astronomy-Geek pron!

lol

I love this stuff, it's so amazing and yet so 'natural'...I would expect the sun to be a bubbling cauldron of plasma and magnetics and primordial fire. Then again, i am just a mere mortal who sees it as a bright ball in the sky, THIS is science! woohoo!

The technical applications and understanding that comes to astronomers through studying the cosmos is where the reward lies, but i am still a total nerd for the "coolness" factor! :D

[Odin2005]

6. That is damn cool!

[Fumesucker]

7. Actually I think it's kind of hot..

Hot enough to burn your eyeballs out if you look at it for very long.

:evilgrin:

[lonestarnot]

9. Ouchie!