Monday 19 November 2012

Double Solar Eruption

This double eruption was recorded over a four-hour period by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory last Friday:-

The huge blasts are many times the size of Earth (Image: Nasa) 

The video (here) is even more impressive.  The first eruption occurs at the limb, the second from the bright facula on the right-hand side of the picture.

From the "did you know" department: did you know that we actually get more light and energy from the sun during a solar maximum, even though there are more sunspots?  That's because sunspots are often assiciated with these brighter-than-average areas called faculae (singular facula) which more than make up for the reduced light from the sunspots.


No comments:

Post a Comment