Telescope Spots Solar Tsunami

scdeimos writes "The prototype of a new solar patrol telescope in New Mexico recorded a tsunami-like shock wave rolling across the visible face of the Sun following a major flare event on Wednesday, Dec. 6. The shock wave, known as a Moreton wave, also destroyed or compressed two filaments of cool gas at opposite sides of the solar hemisphere." From the article: "'These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful. They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material,' said Dr. K. S. Balasubramaniam. 'It is unusual to see such powerful waves encompassing the whole sun from ground based observatories. Its significance comes from the fact that these waves are occurring near solar minimum, when intense activity is yet to pick up.'"

Comments

Re:Northern lights

[Vreejack]

Only if the flares are pointed at us. But most flares (this one included) are not.

Another Animation Of The Event

[szyzyg]

This one shows the whole event and then replays it zoomed in on the sunspot and on the filament destruction

http://meems.imeem.com/iQrVatKB/video/wPgDIh4_/sol ar_tsunami/

A couple of days ago if you googled 'Solar Tsunami' the top hit was from some nutter who had a whole website that was promoting the theory that underneath the photosphere there was a solid iron-silica surface, thankfully the scientists had enough imagination to call it a tsunami rather than a Moreton wave.

I can think of some other crackpot science that needs to be googlebombed into non-significance.