NASA Captures Giant Solar Comet Collision

NASA video captured May 10-11, 2011

SOHO watched as a fairly bright comet dove towards the Sun in a white streak and was not seen again after its close encounter (May 10-11, 2011). The comet, probably part of the Kreutz family of comets, was discovered by amateur astronomer Sergey Shurpakov. In this coronagraph the Sun (represented by a white circle) is blocked by the red occulting disk so that the faint structures in the Sun's corona can be discerned. Interestingly, a coronal mass ejection blasted out to the right just as the comet is approaching the Sun.

Scientists, however, have yet to find a convincing physical connection between sun-grazing comets and coronal mass ejections. In fact, analysis of this CME using images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory shows that the CME erupted before the comet came close enough to the solar surface to interact with strong magnetic fields.

Courtesy of SOHO. 
SOHO is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.

Sun Flare

Amazing video of massive solar flare erupting from surface of Sun

Image by NASA Goddard Photo and Video via Flickr

"NASA's Solar Dynamic Observatory filmed images of a large solar flare on February 24 2011. The (M3.6 rating) event is not the strongest solar flare ever recorded but was still big enough to kick up a huge tendril of plasma, known as a solar prominence. The entire eruption lasted for about 90 minutes. Thursday's flare was the latest in a recent series of of sun
storm emissions, but its blast was directed away from the Earth and is not expected to pose any disruption to satellites or other electronic systems. Scientists use a three tier system to classify solar flares; Class X are the largest and most powerful, Class M are medium but still considered very large, while Class C are the weakest."


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Huge smiley face on the Sun

Huge smiley face on the Sun

Scientists have discovered and photographed a giant smiley face on the Sun. The images were obtained with the help of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite.

“A smiley approximately 600,000 kilometers long and a pair of eyes 200,000 kilometers in diameter are formed by the magnetic fields of the Sun. Black areas are fields with negative polarity and the whites are those with positive polarity. The Sun’s ‘irises’ are four times bigger then the Earth – you can really drown in those eyes,” says a report from the institute’s Laboratory of X-Ray Astronomy of the Sun.

Giant smiley face on the Sun. © NASA, SDO

Photos: © NASA, SDO
via news.mail.ru

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Portrait of the Sun

A portrait of the sun in the wavelength of hydrogen alpha light. A fine art print of this image is available for sale. © Alan Friedman

This image of the sun taken by Buffalo, N.Y., photographer Alan Friedman has become an Internet sensation, thanks to the massive image's eye-popping amount of detail.

Friedman attached a hydrogen-alpha filter to his telescope to improve the visibility of the sun's surface detail. After all, the sun burns through 600 million tons of hydrogen a second.

The images were originally black and white. Friedman added some color, choosing orange to give the average earthling a sense of familiarity.

Info: npr.org

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