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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.'"
So that's where Disaster Area's stunt ship crash landed...
The shock wave, known as a Moreton wave, also destroyed or compressed two filaments of cool gas at opposite sides of the solar hemisphere.
It totally sucks. I mean that was some seriously awesome gas it destroyed. I'm so bummed right now.
... to my solar tsunami relief fund. Wire your money to my Swiss bank account and I'll see that the money be properly used. I have confidence in Slashdot's readers generosity.
...thousands of scientists (and people who think they are scientists) are feverishly work how to turn this news into [1] some sort of apocalyptic press release and [2] grant applications.
Me? Cynical? Nah!
"How long..."
Longer than it took someone to imply that he is unfairly judged as a walking disaster.
With this recent sun activity people in the northern regions of the globe should be able to see Northern Lights, probably stronger than the usual flares since the sun is now (almost) at a minimum.
Although I guess it's a bit of bad luck for Discovery and it's crew with the chance of powerful radiation storms...
First it turns everybody brown, then it kills them.
There is something reminiscent of the modern Republican party in your response, though. Oversimplification, not accepting personal responsibility, and proposing an impossible solution. The only thing missing is you haven't suggested paying for it by lowering taxes.
Seriously, in Moscow I just experienced short random interruptions in AM broadcasts jiust right now. Moments of silence.
Could it be the result of a solar flare?
Amen, dude! Besides, those nasa guys weren't even smart enough to take the pictures during daytime. The sun is all dark and grey.
Nobody has mentioned yet how fucking awesome this is. I expected you would, with your "seriously radical" subject line, but you didn't.
It's a huge tsunami of terrible nuclear fire. A gigantic shock wave of deadly radioactive plasma. Large enough and forceful enough to sustain itself across the surface of the sun, obliterating the few visible features it has. You're in awe when somebody says "the explosion would be visible from the moon" but this is unfathomably larger. It's immense enough to be an astonishingly big statistical anomaly on an object more than a million times the size of the rock we live on.
This is... like... the coolest thing that ever happened in our solar system.
Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
This one shows the whole event and then replays it zoomed in on the sunspot and on the filament destruction
l ar_tsunami/
http://meems.imeem.com/iQrVatKB/video/wPgDIh4_/so
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.
I think that speaks volumes about "1337."
I don't know about you, but my servers run on the power of cotton candy and happy thoughts. -Anonymous Coward