

An eruption from the Sun that happened today - johnnytee
http://youtu.be/Hyi4hjG6kDM

======
ChuckMcM
Very cool. Its amazing what we don't know about the star sitting just 8 light
minutes away from us.

For jnorthrop generally these events are effectively deflected by the Earth's
magnetosphere, however we don't know what we don't know. Its hard to estimate
whether or not any one of the extinction events this planet has experienced
over the past was caused by solar activity.

I would hope it would add impetutus to efforts to surviving large changes in
the Earth's envioronment by creating completely controlled environments
(ideally across several planetary bodies) but I have low expectations that it
will.

One of the science stories I've been following for a while has been the
growing body of evidence that a magnetic pole reversal [1] is becoming more
likely. (Note there was a hoax around it changing instantly in 2012 which has
been pretty thoroughly debunked). One thing that is pretty well understood is
that during reversals the magnetosphere is greatly reduced [2] which suggests
that the simulataneous occurence of a CME and a reversal of the poles
resulting in a reduced magnetosphere would be something to write home about.

[1]
[http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magnet...](http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/29dec_magneticfield.html)

[2] [http://www.off-
ladhyx.polytechnique.fr/people/willis/papers/...](http://www.off-
ladhyx.polytechnique.fr/people/willis/papers/Nature425.pdf)

~~~
jurjenh
And you would have to write, unless there is significantly more tolerance in
our digital network!

With large solar flares there have been reports of telegraph wires having such
large currents induced that the telegraph paper caught on fire from the sparks
generated! [1]

Just imagine what these currents would do to modern sensitive electronics...
And I suspect that there hasn't been that much thorough testing in consumer-
level hardware, although power and communication companies are very aware of
the problems and have changed the designs of some systems to handle these
events better (as in "let's not melt the power grid quite as bad...")

[1] [http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2008/06...](http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-
nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/)

~~~
billswift
_"The northern lights were unusual enough but then worldwide telegraph systems
started going out. Telegraph operators were being shocked unconscious and the
flying sparks from the telegraph machines were setting the papers and their
machines on fire. When the telegraph operators disconnected their machines
from the batteries, there were still sparks flying. This is because the power
of solar flares induced electricity into the lines that carried the telegraph
signals from one telegraph station to the next. This became known as the
Carrington Event."_

[http://factoidz.com/could-another-carrington-event-
destroy-o...](http://factoidz.com/could-another-carrington-event-destroy-our-
economy/)

[http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/space-storm-
insurance....](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/space-storm-
insurance.html)

~~~
mattmanser
Kinda puts me off sitting here with my headphones on...

------
skrebbel
Damn, I read "One of the coolest eruptions from Sun you'll ever see. This
happened today."

I was like finally, closures in java!

~~~
fauigerzigerk
The Sun you mean is now a white dwarf inside a black hole. If you want to know
when you might find closure, you need to ask an Oracle ;-)

~~~
bostonpete
I wish points were visible so I could see how many upvotes this got. Didn't
point visibility get put to a vote by pg not long ago -- last I saw the "yes"
votes were way ahead. (?)

~~~
skrebbel
Not sure which 'this' you're referring to, but my joke is now at 38 points.
Does it really matter? They're just points. And don't worry, i'm still not
able to downvote people :)

------
alanh
Was that a real-time video (i.e., shot and played at 1x speed)? If so, the
matter appears to be traveling at roughly the speed of light. Greater,
perhaps, indicating the video was sped up.
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=diameter+of+the+Sun+%2F...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=diameter+of+the+Sun+%2F+speed+of+light)

 _Edit…_ If you look closely (in HD), there are timestamps, suggesting this is
being played at ~3600x, or one second of playtime representing an hour in
reality.

~~~
sukuriant
I would have rather seen this video occurring much more slowly. It would have
been more .. intense.

------
scott_s
The blog post with more explanation:
[http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/th...](http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-
sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/)

~~~
3pt14159
From that article it says "A good flare can release up to 10% of the Sun’s
total energy" but they mean power, not energy, right? Because 10% of the sun's
total energy released in that time frame would wipe us out, right?

~~~
ars
Power isn't correct either, because power for how long.

I can't figure out what they mean.

~~~
3pt14159
Power is outside of the realm of time. P = E/t, so that's why I assumed power.
For example, say the sun produces 384 yottawatts, that would be 384
yottajoules per second. Say the flare goes on for 6000 seconds and uses an
average of 38 yottawatts, or 228,000 yottajoules over that time period (fun
fact, yotta is where SI stops. Strange.)

~~~
rosser
There's been a movement for a while to add _hella_ as the next SI prefix, for
10^27. It's already been adopted by Google and Wolfram Alpha, among others.

------
jnorthrop
Forgive my ignorant question, but what if that eruption was aimed at us? Was
that a mass ejection of something? If so, could that something have ruined the
electronics in orbiting satellites or stripped our atmosphere?

Maybe I'm over-reacting but that appears to be an absolutely massive
explosion.

~~~
JackWebbHeller
This was a 'coronal mass ejection'. Inevitably, you're right - particles will
no doubt make their way towards us.

These incoming particles will probably cause an increase in Northern/Southern
Lights (Aurora Borealis/Australis). The earth has a 'Van Allen Radiation Belt'
surrounding it - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Allen_Belt> \- which takes
magnetically charged particles, often fired from the sun, and blasts them back
down to earth. Upon impact with the planet's atmosphere, beautiful Auroras can
be created.

However, satellites can't orbit anywhere nearby the Van Allen Belt, as
obviously these radiating particles can damage sensitive instruments. I'd
guess by the size of this mass ejection, a geomagnetic storm will be created.
Wikipedia has a good list of the various negative effects of these things:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm#Geomagnetic_s...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_storm#Geomagnetic_storm_effects)

Of course, it depends on the direction the eruption was aiming as a primary
factor. This wonderful image -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetosphere_rendition.jp...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Magnetosphere_rendition.jpg)
\- shows a perfect example of the Van Allen Belt. If you tip your head 90
degrees to the left, it kind of looks like an angel around earth - the 'halo
area' is the main Van Allen Belt loop causing Auroras by firing the particles
towards each polar cap.

(Disclaimer: I have an interest in astronomy, but nothing to put to my name
except for a B-grade Astronomy GCSE - it's likely much of that explanation is
scientifically inaccurate, but, I tried my best! :)

~~~
jeromec
_If you tip your head 90 degrees to the left, it kind of looks like an angel
around earth - the 'halo area' is the main Van Allen Belt loop causing Auroras
by firing the particles towards each polar cap._

That reminds me of the passage in the Bible claiming four angels standing at
corners of the earth. Not to get into a theistic thread or anything, but who
needs religion when science is that stunning? Beautiful imagery!

~~~
MediaBehavior
Yeah, but it's going to take science a while just to _find_ the corners on the
earth. ;)

~~~
michaeldhopkins
It takes a liberal arts major about a second to find the metaphor. ;)

------
jvdb
For nice current images of the Sun, the Proba 2 satellite [1] continuously
watches it and dumps some nice imagery/movies. It's ESA sponsored, and both
it's sensors (SWAP producing the visuals) are interpreted by the Belgian Royal
Observatory. Iirc the Belgians and the Canadians are the only ones keeping a
close eye on the sun, counting sun spots and such. Makes for a nice desktop bg
also!

[1] <http://proba2.oma.be/index.html/>

~~~
mturmon
If you want exquisite solar desktop images, the place to go is:

<http://www.solarphysics.kva.se/gallery/images/2010/>

These are from the Swedish Vacuum telescope on La Palma (Canary Islands). This
instrument currently offers the highest-resolution solar images anywhere.

The images shown on that page show many convection cells, called the solar
supergranulation. Each cell is about the size of Earth.

What you say about who's keeping an eye on the Sun is not the case. In
addition to the Swedish telescope above, the Japanese have an excellent high-
resolution imager (in orbit) called Hinode, and there are multiple US space
imager including SDO and Stereo, plus many terrestrial telescopes.

------
agilo
I wish there was a way on HN to easily find out submissions that have videos
in them. Often times, especially when I'm eating at my desk, I'd rather watch
interesting videos than read articles, and such a feature would be of great
help on HN.

Maybe there's a way that you guys know of (besides reading cues from the
title)?

~~~
sorbus
The standard convention is to put [video] in the title - a convention which is
sadly being ignored here, along with the inexplicable use of a URL-shortener.
It should be possible to locate all submissions so marked as videos with
HNSearch (it's down at the moment, for some reason, so I can't verify this).

EDIT: HNSearch is back up, searching for "[video]" or "video" in stories seems
to show only links to videos on the first page when sorted by relevance, 8 out
of 10 results when sorted by points, and 9 out of 10 when sorted by date.

~~~
agilo
Thanks for the tip!

------
igrekel
The shockwave is expected to reach earth around 1 pm EST tomorrow (5pm GMT),
auroras are likely to follow after that and they should be visible quite far
south.

<http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/2011/06/08>

------
mmaunder
You'd have to line up 100 Earth's end-to-end to fit inside the Sun. This was
reportedly about the size of the Sun itself, so it would engulf 100 Earths. It
would probably destroy more since even planets on the periphery would have all
life destroyed.

~~~
ars
It's big, but it's also dilute. It would not destroy any planets even if they
were right inside it.

~~~
jedbrown
This statement, taken literally, is absurd. What are you trying to say?

~~~
mmaunder
...that he's absurd. I'm pretty sure exposing our troposphere to 6000K would
hurt a little.

~~~
ars
It would do nothing. We expose the atmosphere to 6000K every day in forges and
nothing bad happens.

The reason of course is the temperature doesn't matter - total energy does.
And even though it's very hot, and very large, there is very very very little
matter there, so the total energy is quite minimal.

------
edge17
Might be interesting to watch this over the next few days -
<http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast>

------
qq66
Is this sped up?

~~~
iclelland
Yes. I couldn't see it at first, because of the advertising overlay, but there
is a time readout in the lower-left of the video.

It looks like it's sped up about 60x.

~~~
checker
Is anyone able to slow this down? I realize they wanted an explosion effect
but it goes too fast for me.

~~~
walrus

      youtube-dl -o sun Hyi4hjG6kDM # [1]
      mplayer -speed 0.25 sun
    

[1] <http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/>. It's available in the Arch Linux and
Ubuntu repositories, as well.

~~~
pyre
get_flash_videos[1] covers more sites and has a plugin infrastructure, though
I haven't personally written a plugin.

[1] <http://github.com/monsieurvideo/get-flash-videos>

------
etruong42
I thought the title meant that an executive from (the now nonexistent) Sun
Microsystems lost his cool.

------
mirkules
First reaction: that's it?? Second reaction: wait, this was big enough to
engulf the Earth. Cool!

~~~
Postscapes
Although not the flare from today, here is an image that has the earth shown
against one of these eruptions for scale:
[http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/515512main_prominence_Ear...](http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/515512main_prominence_Earthscale-033010-orig_full.jpg)

~~~
mirkules
Honestly, when we start talking about these huge distances and the vastness of
space, the scale of things just seems to lose all meaning. Maybe it's because
most of us are engineers and these sorts of numbers only exist in our heads in
abstract terms, but I find that I really have to look around me and ground
myself in relative terms before I can fully grasp how mind-bogglingly huge
that is.

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J3L2404
Until about the middle of February it looked as if we were going to maybe
catch a break on global warming as the Sun's output was down significantly and
the possibility that a Maunder type solar minimum was occurring was
increasing.

About 2/15/11 solar output started getting back to more normal levels.

<http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/index.shtml>

Too bad, we could use a break.

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necenzurat
the sun divided by 0

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mdariani
what simulator do they use?

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strooltz
so that's why skype crashed this morning... :P

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RobMcCullough
Call me paranoid, but that just made my stomach drop.

~~~
igrekel
Why so? You most likely have lived through larger solar eruptions without
knowing it.

------
ryandvm
Hot

------
swah
Didn't hear a thing.

