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Tsunami Spotted on the Surface of the Sun

Posted by samzenpus on from the mother-of-all-disaster-movies dept.

BigBadBus writes "The BBC is reporting that NASA's twin spacecraft designed to obtain stereo images of the Sun have recorded a Solar Tsunami. The feature includes a fascinating movie of the images captured."

27 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. But... by langelgjm · · Score: 5, Funny

    No sound? Lame...

    --
    "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
    1. Re:But... by evanbd · · Score: 4, Interesting

      What would it sound like, anyway? It's a pressure wave, aka a sound wave (mostly, there's apparently magnetic effects involved too), but really loud. Really, really loud. But, that sharp rise and fall in pressure has a definable sound to it. I'm sure someone will do a better job than I can, but I think it would sound a lot like a "pop" but with tonality to it -- it's not a sharp-edged delta function, but rather a bandpass-filtered version of one. It looks from the scale, though, like it's a very low frequency wave -- well into the subsonic regime. You wouldn't so much hear it or even feel it as get blown back and forth by it. Well, neglecting that detail about the energy levels involved. Suffice to say that overpowered stereo your neighbor has wouldn't come close...

    2. Re:But... by evanbd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The solar wind has a pressure, and you can measure it. And it changes. You could interpret that pressure as sound. It would be quiet by terrestrial standards, but an event like this would definitely make noise.

      Of course, your microphone wouldn't bear much resemblance to a terrestrial one; measuring pressures that low is a tricky thing.

    3. Re:But... by 4D6963 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You know, when you turn a seismogram into sound and speed it up, it sounds pretty much like rubbing two rocks against each other. That sort of event usually sounding the way you'd expect them to once you speed it up enough, I'd say this solar Tsunami must sound like the type of explosion you'd expect to hear.

      --
      You just got troll'd!
    4. Re:But... by evwah · · Score: 5, Funny

      too bad you can't hear the woosh sound of that joke going over your head in space either

    5. Re:But... by S.O.B. · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you play it backwards you hear, "Paul is dead, Paul is dead".

      --
      Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
    6. Re:But... by Zode · · Score: 3, Funny

      actually you hear "Here comes the sun."

  2. Global warming? by reboot246 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Probably caused by global warming. Everything else seems to be.

    (tongue in cheek)

    1. Re:Global warming? by jimmux · · Score: 5, Funny

      This is nothing. Wait until the sun's ice caps melt, then we'll be in trouble.

    2. Re:Global warming? by Krusso88 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe Al Gore will have a Live Sun concert to raise enough funds to prevent future tSUNnami's

  3. Special Effects by Doc+Ruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That movie is pretty cool, but only if you use a lot of imagination, which defeats the point of the movie (except for scientists).

    I always like movies of the Sun a lot better when they accurately show how gauzy the Sun actually is, because it's really a ball of gas, not as solid as pictures like that show. Some color, and some of the stars beyond shining through, all make these movies of the Sun hanging in space look a lot cooler, and a lot less like peering through a microscope.

    --

    --
    make install -not war

    1. Re:Special Effects by yorugua · · Score: 4, Funny

      That movie is pretty cool
      I can't agree. I'd say it's very hot.
    2. Re:Special Effects by orangepeel · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm the same way. One of the things that gives me pause is when a publication states that something is "hotter than the surface of the sun."

      I always ask myself a question whenever I read or hear that line: what surface? Where the heck do you define the "surface" in the case of a star?

      I assume that somewhere at the sun's core you've got some type of phenomenally wacky material, and from there on out you're just looking at an energized soupy plasma that just gets progressively less and less dense. Even if you get to some point where somebody decides the pressure suddenly becomes worthy of "surface" status, it's still not going to be anything like a surface in the minds of most normal humans. The "surface" is roiling, boiling, and exploding with astronomical energies non-stop. That seems to me like trying to describe an exploding can of aerosol cheese as a cohesive solid, and I dare say we all know from experience how ridiculous that would be.

      To me, referring to the surface of the sun seems akin to invoking the question, "what's the length of the coastline of England?" My answer would be, "on what scale?" But I seem to be the only one who feels that way, so perhaps I'm just in the dark over something. Has someone figured out some cool relationship between the gravitational ability of the sun to hold on to its own matter compared with the average energy of a certain layer of plasma or something? I don't know. I never hear it talked about. All I ever hear is that simple phrase, "the surface of the sun," used in article after article ... like it's so damn obvious and how much of a moron I must be to stumble over it every time.

      Sometimes I suspect that someone, somewhere, with god-like precision simply declared one day, "no, this distance outward from the core represents the surface, and fuck you if you doubt me".

      *shrug*

      --
      Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
    3. Re:Special Effects by palndrumm · · Score: 4, Informative

      I always ask myself a question whenever I read or hear that line: what surface? Where the heck do you define the "surface" in the case of a star? Obligatory Wikipedia Reference:

      "The visible surface of the Sun, the photosphere, is the layer below which the Sun becomes opaque to visible light."

      So there you go. Not something I'd ever really thought about either to be honest, but I guess someone at some point has.
    4. Re:Special Effects by pclminion · · Score: 4, Informative

      Photons which are generated at the core of the sun, where fusion is occurring, can take tens or hundreds of millions of years to reach the surface (and by that time, they have been thermally absorbed and re-emitted so many times it's hard to even call them the same photons). It might be a big ball of gas, but star matter is also one of the most opaque substances commonly occurring in the universe, due to the enormous density.

  4. The first? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't mean to be picky, but this is from the front page:

    BigBadBus writes "The BBC is reporting that NASA's twin spacecraft designed to obtain stereo images of the Sun have recorded the first Solar Tsunami."

    Did you mean "the first footage of a solar tsunami", perhaps?

  5. Fun on the Sun by Revenger75 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let's go mega-surfin' Dude! It will be rad(iation)! I'll bring the 3.0x10^8 SPF sunblock, you bring the Unobtainium surfboards, and Cowboy Neil will bring the beer.

    1. Re:Fun on the Sun by langelgjm · · Score: 3, Funny

      and Cowboy Neil will bring the beer.

      You must be... no, scratch that, you ARE new here.

      --
      "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
  6. SNAP by cpricejones · · Score: 4, Funny

    Your momma is so fat when she steps into the ocean her ripples cause a tsunami ... ON THE SUN

  7. No tourists this time of year by EmbeddedJanitor · · Score: 4, Funny

    The sun is very hot except at night.

    --
    Engineering is the art of compromise.
  8. Kinda lame by shird · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This might be an event on some otherwise quiet planet. But given the Sun itself is a gigantic ball of freakin' fire, with solar flares and enough UV to cause cancer in people on other planets, a bit of a wave doesn't seem quite as impressive.

    --
    I.O.U One Sig.
  9. Obligatory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What would it sound like, anyway? Hmm, what would a wave of gas sound like?

    First, did it come out of Uranus?
  10. Correction by relikx · · Score: 3, Informative

    I believe Solar Tsunami is a bit of a misnomer. As tsunami literally translates to 'harbor wave' a more accurate name would be Taiyounami or perhaps Ra-tasm.

  11. Re:Totally Gnarly, Dood! by kylehase · · Score: 3, Funny

    Make sure to use all-temperature wax.

    --
    You want fun, go home and buy a monkey!
  12. Re:A Tsunami on the SUN! by Spy+der+Mann · · Score: 4, Funny

    Heck, let's make a new word for that. Let's call it "Sunami" :D

  13. The Martian Asks: by Somegeek · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Where's the Kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom!"

    --
    And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
  14. Re:And yet... by pclminion · · Score: 4, Informative

    I assume you are referring to the Asian tsunami. The problem wasn't that we couldn't find it in time, but that the warning systems were not in place to alert people once this information was known. This is not a breakdown of science, but of government.