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Supercomputer Models Sun's Corona Dynamics

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the waiting-for-the-vogons dept.

gihan_ripper writes "Researchers from San Diego are using supercomputers to accurately predict the shape of the Sun's corona, based on magnetic field data from the photosphere. It is hoped that this model will enable us to predict Coronal Mass Ejections. When CMEs reach the Earth, they produce geomagnetic storms and can wreak havoc with communcations, GPS, and power networks. In the decade or so, the researchers hope to be able to predict CME collisions with the Earth and determine their impact."

2 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. Incredible videos by caryw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    CME's produce some incredible video when they hit our sun-pointed satellites. If you haven't seen them I highly recommend checking out NASA's "Best Of SOHO Movies" for a better idea of what these things are capable of.

    http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/bestofsoho/Movies/m ovies2.html
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  2. Re:Awesome! by Elemenope · · Score: 1, Interesting

    It's funny you should say that. I would think that a sizeable nuclear detonation (at the right time and place) would cause a pressure wave powerful enough to disrupt the dynamo that is the low pressure center of a hurricane, and dissipate it. I dunno, any meteorologists in the crowd? Just how sensitive is a hurricane to disruptions of that magnitude? Do we even have a vaguest notion?

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    All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)