Fire in the SkyS


Sun

Massive Plasma Waves Sweep the Sun -- NASA: "We're Seeing Things We've Never Seen Before"

Plasma Waves
© NASA

A huge storm on the sun this past week unleashed what some have called the most massive eruption of solar plasma ever seen. NASA astronomers said the huge June 7 solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, probably wasn't the biggest ever, but it is notable both for its size and its odd behavior, as massive waves of plasma roared off the sun only to rain back down on the solar surface.

"We're seeing things we've never seen before," said Phillip Chamberlin, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center and a deputy project scientist on the agency's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite. "It's a really exciting event. There are a lot of exceptions to it."

Since scientists know how these waves initiated by a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability they can use this information to help solve an enduring mystery of why the corona is thousands of times hotter than originally expected.

"One of the biggest questions about the solar corona is the heating mechanism," says solar physicist Leon Ofman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and Catholic University. "The corona is a thousand times hotter than the sun's visible surface, but what heats it up is not well-understood. People have suggested that waves like this might cause turbulence which cause heating, but now we have direct evidence of Kelvin-Helmholtz waves."

Meteor

Best of the Web: Cosmic Propaganda Alert! Comet Elenin: Just Passing By - With SOTT Commentary

Earth Elenin
© J. Major
It starts out innocently enough: a small speck against a field of background stars, barely noticeable in the image data. But... it's a speck that wasn't there before. Subsequent images confirm its existence - there's something out there. Something bright, something large, and it's moving through our solar system very quickly. The faint blur indicates that it's a comet, an icy visitor from the outermost reaches of the solar system. And it's headed straight toward Earth.

Exhaustive calculations are run and re-run. Computer simulations are executed. All possibilities are taken into consideration, and yet there's no alternative to be found; our world will face a close encounter with a comet in mere months' time. Phone calls are made, a flurry of electronic messages fly between computer terminals across the world, consultations are held with top experts in the field. We are unprepared... what can we do? What does this mean for civilization as we know it? What will this speeding icy bullet from outer space do to our planet?

Comment: By all means read what NASA has to say about it. Then consider this...

NASA warns solar flares from 'huge space storm' will cause devastation
UK Daily Telegraph
Tuesday, 15 June 2010

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation "space storm", Nasa has warned...

Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes "from a deep slumber" sometime around 2013.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like "a bolt of lightning" and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken. [...]
...and what McCanney wrote in Planet X, Comets and Earth Changes:
NASA is hiding data that would prove that there is another massive object inbound into the solar system with potential for devastating events for planet Earth. There is clear evidence that they fully intend to set the world's population up to be blindsided by this object. (McCanney, p.101)

The truth is that NASA, the NSA and other government agencies are prohibited by law from disclosing anything to the public that would cause a national panic. So too they will try to prevent dissemination of my theories about comets because it might cause a public to redirect its allegiance as a new and potentially dangerous comet comes into the solar system. While the government officials are using tax dollars to build safety caves for their "shadow government" in case of "major disaster", they are leaving the public out to dry with no forewarning or protection.
...before getting the real lowdown on Comet Elenin from these:

Comet Elenin is Coming!

Pole Shift in March? Not Likely!

Comet Elenin: Harbinger of What?

Comet Elenin Update!


Sun

Unusual solar storm could disrupt Earth communications

An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on Tuesday could cause some disruptions to satellites, communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said.

An eruption of similar magnitude on the Sun has not been witnessed since 2006, according to the National Weather Service.
Image
© SOHOThis 2006 Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) image shows a flare on the Sun. An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on Tuesday could cause some disruptions to satellites, communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said. An eruption of similar magnitude has not been witnessed since 2006.

"The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare with a substantial coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7 that is visually spectacular," NASA's solar dynamics observatory said in a statement.

"The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface."

The flare peaked at a 1:41 am Eastern time in the United States, or 0541 GMT.

Sun

Monster Prominence Erupts from Sun


Early this morning (June 7, 2011) an amazingly massive and spectacular event took place on the Sun; a huge prominence eruption, marked by a solar flare and release of energetic particles. Daniel Pendick from the Geeked on Goddard blog described it as a "fountain of plasma that blasts out of the solar surface, spreads outward, and collapses to splat back down."

"I've never seen material released like this before, such a huge amount that falls back down in such a spectacular way," says Dr. C. Alex Young in the video. "It looks like someone just kicked a giant clod of dirt into the air and it fell back down." Young added that this event will probably not cause any problems as far as space weather affecting Earth.

This video is courtesy NASA Goddard's Helioviewer.org with narration by folks from The Sun Today.

Below are some still images of the event from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and (just added at 1755 UTC) a video from SDO showing the event in several different wavelengths.

Sun

Massive solar flare somersaults

The "Behind" member of NASA's STEREO spacecraft studying the sun has captured spectacular imagery of a rare somersaulting coronal mass ejection.

The movie of the event combines images captured with the spacecraft's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUVI) and Inner Coronograph (COR1) telescopes.

The prominence is first seen erupting in the EUVI images and then in white light with COR1. In the white light images, the prominence pauses. Some of the material then drains back down, but most of it is defected to the north and ends up raining down on a different part of the sun.

Sun

M-Class Flare and S-1 Class Radiation Storms Heading Our Way

This morning around 0641 UT, magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1226-1227 became unstable and erupted. The blast produced an M2-class solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm, and a massive CME. A recording of the blast from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory ranks as one of the most beautiful and dramatic movies of the SDO era:


Higher resolution, higher cadence footage will be available for viewing later today.

Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) are still monitoring the CME as it billows away from the sun. Watch the cloud expand. The speckles are caused by energetic charged particles hitting the camera's CCD array. This is what we mean by a "radiation storm"; the particles were accelerated by the explosion and are now peppering Earth-orbiting satellites and spacecraft like SOHO.

Meteor

A Meteor Shower In Broad Daylight - Arietid Meteor Shower Peaks This Week

The annual Arietid meteor shower peaks this week on June 7th and 8th. The Arietids are unusual because they are daytime meteors; the shower is most intense after sunrise. People who wake up early might notice a small number of Arietids during the dark hours before dawn. The real action, however, occurs in broad daylight.

Image
© UnknownThis image shows the area of sky around the Arietid radiant (indicated by a red dot) as seen from mid-northern latitudes at 4 a.m. on June 7th or 8th. A southern hemisphere map is available, too.

Sun

Solar Activity - On The Edge

Amateur astronomers around the world are reporting strong activity on the limb of the sun. "The prominences on June 4th were gigantic," says Mike Borman, who photographed this specimen from his backyard observatory in Evansville, Indiana:

Solar Activity
© Mike BormanImage Taken: Jun 4, 2011
Location: Evansville, Indiana, USA
Solar Activity_1
© Mike Borman
Prominences are clouds of hot plasma held above the stellar surface by unstable magnetic fields. They can shift, subside, surge, and sometimes even explode--almost anything is possible. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.

Meteor

Star Points: Astronomical observation accompanied by sound

green fireball
© Unknown
Astronomical observations are based on the detection of visible light as well as other energy forms all across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma radiation. Although certain kinds of radiation, such as radio waves, may be converted electronically into sound waves, thus producing hissing and humming sounds detectable to the human ear, people do not tend to think of astronomers listening directly to the actual sounds emanating from heavenly bodies.

I thought so, too.

That is, until a couple of nights ago, when something strange was heard coming out of the night sky.

A close friend owns a vacation home near the summit of one of the tallest mountains in West Virginia. And of those tallest mountains, his house peers down from one of the few where privately owned habitable dwellings exist. The elevation of the house is 4,440 feet above sea level.

On Sunday night, we were observing planets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies with his largest telescope. The views through it were tremendous thanks to the dark skies free from the garish glare from any tawdry and gaudy man-made outdoor lighting fixtures, the thinner drier air found at that altitude and by the light gathering power of the large 24-inch diameter telescope mirror.

Meteor

US: Man-size meteor lights up Georgia sky

Brightest meteor yet recorded by NASA's fireball-observing network.

Image
© NASA/MSFC/MEOThis shot from a NASA fireball-watching camera shows a meteor over Macon, Ga., on the evening of May 20, 2011.
A brilliant meteor blazed through the sky above Georgia recently, and two NASA fireball-monitoring cameras caught the dramatic display on video.

The meteor was caused by a human-size chunk of an unknown comet. It was the brightest meteor yet recorded by NASA's fireball-observing network - based at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. - in its nearly three years of operation, officials said.

The 6-foot-wide (1.8-meter) space rock barrelled into Earth's atmosphere at 10:47 p.m. EDT on May 20 (0247 GMT on May 21), about 66 miles (106 kilometers) above the city of Macon, Ga. [ Video of the bright Macon meteor ]