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How Did We All Not Die?: Video Of Massive Solar Eruption

September 7, 2012 / astronomy, boom!, close call (i know nothing about space i'm just judging from that picture that we should all be thankful to be alive), cool, god what i would have given to be in that radiation blast and turn into a planet eating monster, i can't believe we made it, shooting things, solar, space, sun, sun vomit, that lucky old sun has nothing to do but roll around heaven all day, the sun is pretty cool you know?, throwing up, whew

solar-eruption.jpg

Did you know earth is that small compared to the sun? Oh you did? Well did you know earth really isn't that close to the sun? You knew that too, huh? Well excuse me for trying to educate, Mr. Smarty Pants. MASSIVE SOLAR ERUPTION!:

This "long filament of solar material," as NASA calls it, was spotted tearing away from the Sun at upwards of 900 miles per second.


"It is hard to easily judge the size of this 3D event with a 2D image at this angle, but this filament is probably on the order of 30 Earths across, 300,000 kilometers or 186,000 miles," explained C. Alex Young, a solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.

Hit the jump for a video of the action, which I'm still having a hard time believing is real and not just a cutscene from the Mass Effect franchise. Hey, I'm just glad we survived the thing and my satellite television never went out. FUN FACT: Did you know the sun is the ruling sign for Leos like myself? That might explain why I'm so pale. "You get inside and you f***ing stay there!" it's always yelling at me.

Hit the jump for various shots of the eruption taken at different wavelengths, as well as the video.

solar-eruption-wavelenghts.jpg

looks-warm.jpg

solar-eruption-full-sun.jpg

Thanks to Closet Nerd, Danielle and Inky Bloc, who all made sure to point out that earth isn't really that close to the sun because they think I'm dumb. And I am, I thought that was a real photo taken from Mars.

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There are Comments
  • ZomBBombeR

    This video is pretty good, I mean the music was fitting and the footage was pretty epic and when your stoned well everything is better right? But seriously that flare/eruption was massive, just amazing how many nuclear bombs that thing equals in power!

  • moog89

    How about some useful information? Such as: when did this happen? Will it affect operations on earth? If so, when will it hit?

  • superforsyth

    SUNGASM!

  • Is this the reason why space stinks soooo much?

  • BillGatesIsYourDaddy

    let's see...its 2012...the sun is tearing apart...looks like we are still on track

  • ZomBBombeR

    Lmao.

  • Closet Nerd

    Has any of the commentators here been commenting since the time of MLIG?
    .......just sayin [askin]

    I may of stopped commenting as frequently, MLIGAAF..... just sayin

  • 017

  • This append around 5 to 12 times in a children's drawing. :)

  • skinja

    The video must have been sped up. The flare would appear to be moving faster than the speed of light based on the relative size of the sun (and earth) in the photo and video.

  • pkami

    lol rethink that my friend. the speed of light is nearly 600 million mph

  • JJtoob

    If the picture with the Earth to scale is close to accurate, Earth being ~10,000 Km wide, and the speed of light is ~300,000 Km/s, I can roughly estimate that at the speed of the video, the flare is bursting roughly at the speed of light (30 Earths/second). I'm no genius mathematician, my calculations could be way off, but that's what I came up with. They should have added labels to tell us what videos were shown at real time. And how fast or slow the other ones were in comparison.

  • ZomBBombeR

    All I did was take the 900 miles/sec mentioned in the article x 60 sec in a min x60 min in an hour and came up with 3,240,000 miles/H so thats aprox. how fast the solar eruption happened/travelled not quite light speed but many times the speed of sound and within the hour it happend would have covered ~522.58 earths lined up from the surface of the sun outward, thats insane and the rest of the video is showing the scale in referance to other larger stars and how the eruption/flare rips beyond the size of larger stars.
    I got the 522.58 by taking the 186,000 miles in the article deviding that by 30 earths to get 6200 miles per earth ~10,000km, then I just devided the 3,240,000 mph by 6200m per earth and viola, and yes I know how to use exponents.

  • westmclarenmerc

    I love how this article explains in what direction that eruption went in regard to the Earth's location, which it doesn't, because if this went in the direction of the Earth we would've been in for a few really really hot days. I guess we dodged a massive heat wave there.

  • JJtoob

    That's to begin with. I wonder if anything like that could cause damage to the ISS beyond toothbrush repair.

  • westmclarenmerc

    Well, these kinds of bursts are fairly common but rarely seen going outward at such a visible angle, and the ISS is still largely protected by the earths magnetosphere. The ISS has more to worry about space debris than solar outbursts. But in a event in which the ISS may be in danger for electro magnetic interference NASA will warm them about it because they are constantly monitoring for such an event, and tell them to shut off all critical systems important for maintaning an orbit and breathable air, or they will be told to head for the Soyuz escape capsule and prepare for evacuation. In either case, don't worry about them.

  • gob

    well, sometimes even the sun need to let out a fart.

  • Glad that I wasn't the only one that though so.

  • Closet Nerd

    To be honest...... I totally forgot that I submitted this!
    I must of been on a bender.... or somethin
    I've been attending 'GA' [Geekologie Anonymous] , but I just can't help it... MLIG
    .... just sayin

  • Arnkell Jónsson

    the one over there that's sea blue or whatever the call it (down, right)
    What wavelength is that? It's pretty neat.

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