Solar Eruption To Reach Earth Soon

rastos1 writes "Spacecraft from NASA recently observed an eruption on the Sun sending billions of tons of particles toward Earth. The solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, occurred Tuesday at 1:24 a.m. EDT (0524 GMT) and sent charged particles streaking outward at 380 miles per second. That's just over 1.3 million mph (2.2 million km/h). The solar fallout from the sun storm is expected to reach Earth over the next few days. Interestingly, an unnamed icy comet from the outer solar system dove into the sun and disintegrated nearly a the same time (video)."

Comments

NBD, it seems

[AndyAndyAndyAndy]

"These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground," NASA officials explained in a statement. [Solar Max Photos: Sun Storms of 2013]

Wednesday's solar storm erupted just 21 hours after another powerful coronal mass ejection (NASA calls them CMEs) on Tuesday (Aug. 20). That solar tempest also sent billions of tons of solar particles on their way to Earth.

So maybe if you have satellite TV you'll see a few spotty moments, but nothing to worry about.

Re:NBD, it seems

[epiphani]

Yeah, I can't understand why this is news. I've seen it on two sites now.

This wasn't even an M-class flare, and the CME is only expected to push planetary Kp to 4. As in this doesn't even register as a geomagnetic storm. See this page for an explanation of Kp and you can also see this page for the predicted impact.

Somehow some idiot picked up on this, and this news is making the rounds. I've seen a lot of people confused by the coverage - this is a bloody whisper in the solar flare world.

Re:NBD, it seems

[stevegee58]

Yes, but it provides a distraction for the public from the collapsing economy and rampant domestic NSA surveillance.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that the GI@UAF is showing decreased activity through the rest of the month. The peak in any Earth bound activity was yesterday.
 
As usual, Slashdot is a day late and a dollar short.

Re:NBD, it seems

[dkleinsc]

Also, you may be able to see the aurora much closer to the equator than normal, which is kinda nifty.

Re:NBD, it seems

[nomorecwrd]

So, no marshmellows to put out on this flare?

Re:NBD, it seems

[bobbied]

Yes, but it provides a distraction for the public from the collapsing economy and rampant domestic NSA surveillance.

[Cheek = Insert Tongue]

WHAT?

NSA is watching me? Oh the Horror!

[/Cheek = Insert Tongue]

I think you have a point...

Re:NBD, it seems

[jellomizer]

Chill dude. Stop get off the news channels for a bit. Go out get a job, volunteer.
Bitching on the internet, and trying to twist every new article into being relevant to your particular we are doomed senserio. Isn't going to help anyone, and it just makes you feel bad.

If the worlds going to end. Might as well go out and enjoy yourself.

Re:NBD, it seems

[jamessnell]

Tell that to the telegraph operators with burned hands from a big CME back in the 1800s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

The coincidental timing of the comet is pretty cool.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Ghjnut]

It's good to see stuff like this hit the front page. It helps space out the onslaught of disappointing stories slashdot breaks regarding the incompetence/malice of leadership in this country. Seeing a cruising ice comet hit the sun with a CME following is pretty damn cool too.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

... I've seen a lot of people confused by the coverage - this is a bloody whisper in the solar flare world.

You really take all the fun out of scaring dumbasses, you know it?

Re:NBD, it seems

[freeze128]

What concerns me is that this was learned about on Tuesday, and it's just getting any kind of media traction today on FRIDAY. If this were a serious event, that wouldn't be enough time to do much. This has been a test of NASA's emergency broadcast system.... And it has failed miserably. If this had been an actual emergency, we would all be dead by now.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Hatta]

Yeah, I can't understand why this is news. I've seen it on two sites now.

If it's likely to cause aurora in locations that don't usually get aurora, it's definitely news.

Re:NBD, it seems

[uberjack]

This wasn't even an M-class flare, ...

Maybe not, but it is approaching a class-M planet.

Re:NBD, it seems

[epiphani]

Yeah, I can't understand why this is news. I've seen it on two sites now.

If it's likely to cause aurora in locations that don't usually get aurora, it's definitely news.

No. No it's not. On both your points. No.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Hatta]

NOAA tells me that the auroral oval extends as far south as my home state of Nebraska, which is rare. That's not national news, but it's certainly local news.

Re:NBD, it seems

[MickLinux]

Could we come off yhe coincidental ti@ing bit, already? How many times do we need to see this "coincidence", of a comet diving into the sun, followed by an instaneous CME, to at least calculate the probability of CMEs being caused by comets vs not caused by comets?

Then, armed with that info, to posit that the hydrogen gas, being ionized, or perhaps the rotational momentum, or perhaps another conservation law, requires this, and deduce the mechanism?

Re:NBD, it seems

[Sir or Madman]

A comet hitting the sun is pretty awesome, I don't care how often it happens.

It's breathtaking to watch and beats 99.9% of "real news" any day.

I wish we had more mainstream news like this. It might cause people reflect more on all the petty crap that gets them down. "Wah, I lost my keys...wait, at least I didn't get smoked by a frickin' ice comet!"

Re:NBD, it seems

[tlhIngan]

Tell that to the telegraph operators with burned hands from a big CME back in the 1800s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

Or, more recently the residents of Quebec, Canada, in 1989 where the power grid was disrupted due magnetic induction caused by the solar storm (the store interacts with Earth's magnetic field, the varying magnetic field then induces currents into the long transmission lines).

Given today's society is even MORE dependent on the power grid and even MORE dependent on satellites, they are of somewhat more worry. Heck, the east coast blackout of 2003 was fairly disruptive. Now imagine what fun to be had when GPS goes down (which can take out seemingly unrelated things like cellphones, since GPS is used for precise timing purposes)

While not quite a superstorm, it's still something to monitor.

Re:NBD, it seems

[AdamHaun]

How many times do we need to see this "coincidence", of a comet diving into the sun, followed by an instaneous CME, to at least calculate the probability of CMEs being caused by comets vs not caused by comets?

If you watch the video, you'll see that the CME happens well before the comet hits the sun.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

If this had been an actual emergency, we would all be dead by now.

If this type of event was big enough to kill you, it wouldn't matter how much advance warning you had.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I might actually care if this was a couple of orders of magnitude closer in power to that one. For me all this means is that if the sky stays clear I might be able to drive out a ways into the country and show my oldest the aurora since that might be a big deal for him at age 5. The biggest issue is the amount of light pollution in my area.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Al Al Cool J]

The CME was the Sun's defense mechanism when it saw the comet coming right at it. It ejected in self-defense.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Immerman]

Ah, so you're saying the the sun is actually an alien vessel with a high power point defense system? Interesting...

In fairness it's not *impossible* that an incoming object could subtly disrupt the sun's magnetosphere and somehow catalyze a CME. The miniscule energy of even a full on size large comet "impact" (like anything's going to survive passing through the upper atmosphere) would seem to render it unlikely though, so I'll wait stick to doing my higher probabilty research first. Now if you'll excuse me I have unicorn-hunting safari to get ready for.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Joce640k]

If it's likely to cause aurora in locations that don't usually get aurora, it's definitely news.

That argument only holds if they post the news the day it happens, not after the event...

(which they always do)

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

The universe is sending us a sign... Ballmer is retiring soon!

Re:NBD, it seems

[Joce640k]

Would have been even niftier if they told us last Tuesday so we could travel North a bit...

Re:NBD, it seems

[Immerman]

Oh quite certainly. However if it was big enough to ignite telegraph lines, such as the 1859 "Carrington Flare", there's an awful lot of of damage-mitigation we would be able to do, and I fully expect the word would be going out within hours of the observation.

This one though, who cares? It was mentioned on the "solar weather channel" and that's all it deserves. If the media commented on it every time the sun belches in our direction they wouldn't have time to discuss anything else.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Immerman]

Eh, no big deal. Those things are barely habitable to begin with.

Re:NBD, it seems

[MickLinux]

No, you're imagining the edge of the sun (!?!) as being the edge of visible gases. In terms of the sun as a single electromagnetic plasma unit, the sun is much larger than that; the comet was already in the sun.

As the water evaporates off the comet, and then ionizes, it is going to disrupt the magnetic fields of the plasma streaming out of the sun. That, in turn, is going to cause a response. The response will attempt to restore the magnetic energy to neutral. Conservation of momentum, then, is likely to cause exactly the response you see.

But don't take my word for it. Go back, and look at the graphs of the sun every single time we can record a cometfall. Now, find the number of CMEs of similar order of magnitude (nothing smaller than 1/10 the size) that occur each year. Then, taking the same "t seconds before impact" as your zero, calculate the probability of the CME being coincidence, vs. the probability of it being causally related.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Gilmoure]

The sun's name is Ned?

Re:NBD, it seems

[Immerman]

What does the NSA have to do with the end of the world? We now have government confirmation that they are operating a secret domestic surveillance program that would make the Gestapo jizz their pants, and that sort of power *will* eventually be abused horribly, if it hasn't already. And that the secret court providing oversight has deemed it unconstitutional and been ignored. Not end-of-the-world shit, but something that every US citizen should be outraged over, and trying everything they can think of to get shut down if they want this country to maintain even a passing semblance to democracy.

Sure, other topics are also of interest - but nothing else even begins to approach the significance that the current political discussion will likely have on ourselves, our children, and quite likely many generations to come. And we have a long and easily confirmed history of the big media conglomerates "manufacturing" stories to distract attention from politically inconvenient information, so the GP's post is a perfectly valid observation.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Immerman]

Yes, a large CME is something to be worried about, and it's only a matter of time before another one hits us.

But just because massive wildfires are dangerous doesn't mean that a candle being lit is a news story. The current CME will make for a slightly larger and brighter Aurora than normally visible, that's it. Nothing newsworthy unless you live in one of the few areas effected.

Re:NBD, it seems

[rastos1]

I've submitted the story. I'm so sorry I could not deliver a more newsworthy eruption. I'll do my best next time to at last bring the GPS satellites down.

Re:NBD, it seems

[jovius]

So true. Another way media reacts is a day later, when the headlines call people to see auroras tonight (which happened last night). Anyway, here's cool data 3D data and predictions about the solar wind by NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center: Solar Wind Prediction. When solar wind really hits the speed can be over 1000 km/s, which probably will not happen because the maximum at hand is weak anyway.

Re:NBD, it seems

[MickLinux]

Note that the CME is no worse than the two streams of solar wind that the Earth passes through regularly. The plasma density is extremely low: that is one comet's mass of CME spread out over 4*Pi*(1 AU)^2. In area, and a significant fraction of an ÃU in thickness.

Re:NBD, it seems

[mikael]

And if it disrupts the ionosphere, and we get radio stations that we don't normally receive, that's definitely news .. or pop music, talk radio or jazz...

Re:NBD, it seems

[mikael]

People in the UK started hearing radio stations from the other side of the North Sea. And the aurora that night were awesome - bands of green light would travel across the sky and in the point opposite the Sun was a reddish-green + shaped spot.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Angeret]

I wish I had points to give. Nicely said and better than what I had in mind. Time some people realised that there's more to the sun than simply "ooh look shiny thing in sky, nice & warm, aaaah!" The sun might look nice & stable out there in the middle of the solar system, but what would it take to screw things up for it and, ultimately, us?

Re:NBD, it seems

[dierdorf]

"Every single time we can record a cometfall," my ass. The sun-watching observatories see one of these every two or three days and there is NO correlation to CMEs. Most of them are in the same orbit and are called Kreuz sungrazers, the remains of a big comet that broke up maybe 2,000 years ago when it passed too close to the sun. The bigger Kreuz chunks that miss the sun and come on around have been some of the most spectacular comets ever seen on Earth, simply because they generate huge tails on their close pass. This was an itty-bitty one -- the only reason it was visible at all was that it had already evaporated and we were seeing the dust and water vapor cloud where the comet used to be.

Re:NBD, it seems

[MickLinux]

Let me posit a possible mechanism, taking this a step farther. The solar wind we experience consists of charged plasma being driven outwards, away from the sun. Now, that plasma consists of electrons and protons.

Likewise, the comet atmosphere -- stretched out thin to the front and back -- strikes the solar wind at hypersonic speeds, and ionizes. It, too, has electrons and protons. The electrons, being of light mass, get driven back with the solar wind almost immediately. The protons don't.

Likewise, the solar wind's electrons get driven back, to follow the comet plasma. The protons don't.

At this point, you have a collision of protons against protons, but not a striking collions, but a magnetic collision. create one magnetic field; the solar wind creates an opposite magnetic field. These work together to decelerate the relative velocity. But half of that mass involves accelerating solar wind.

Moreover, the magnetic field will act at the speed of light, preceeding the comet atmosphere's actual entry.

Thus, the entry of the comet should drive out a CME to meet the comet.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, the magnetic field will act at the speed of light, preceeding the comet atmosphere's actual entry.

Not in an area with any reasonable plasma density, like the corona or photosphere of the Sun. The changes in the magnetic field will propagate typically at the Alfven velocity, which is much less than that of c. You can also end up with a situation where the solar wind is flowing outward faster than the magnetic field can propagate inward, so any changes to the magnetic field will not make it back to the lower parts of the sun unless you make a big enough change to the plasma and push that change all the way.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

That, in turn, is going to cause a response. The response will attempt to restore the magnetic energy to neutral.

How far that response actually propagates can end up being really small though. You can't treat propagation of magnetic fields through a plasma like the corona the same as through a vacuum, and you could have those perturbations pushed out by the solar wind before they get even close to a more interesting part of the Sun.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen results for this CME yet, but in general they tend to be a lot narrower than 4pi stradians, and can end up being concentrated within less than 10% of a full 1 AU sphere. There is more to just the density (or excess density as is usually more relevant) too.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Known Nutter]

Yeah, I can't understand why this is news.

Doesn't it become news when images of the event are set to some epic, apocalyptic sounding musical score as heard in the youtube link?

... tongue firmly in cheek.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

100% agree. The linked video was pretty damn cool, from my perspective as someone with very little knowledge of this stuff.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the video of the comet flying into the sun. However, I am not clear about the size of the comet. If the sun is the size of a quarter, then the earth would be the size of a grain of salt. If the earth was the size of a grain of salt, then the comet would be the size of a grain of powder. So what we would see is a grain of powder flying into a quarter. But what we do see is a grain of salt flying into the quarter, so how fucking big was the comet? The sun looked like it blew up on impact.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just every US citizen, every human of the world. In Australia we're happily sending over full digital content (not just meta data) to the NSA for any communications that go through, or to, the US. Not a blip on any newspaper or on the nightly news, it's been going on since 2011. If they keep going, the US will be the overlord of Earth and freedom will be a bitter memory as we quietly move past the drones on our way to serve our glorious leaders.

Re: NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

hey I'll listen to anything that displaces a global warming^H^H^H climate change torture topics.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Wireless Joe]

Chill dude....Go out get a job, volunteer... Might as well go out and enjoy yourself.

Warning: incompatible advice detected.

Re:NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

But don't take my word for it. Go back, and look at the graphs of the sun every single time we can record a cometfall. Now, find the number of CMEs of similar order of magnitude (nothing smaller than 1/10 the size) that occur each year. Then, taking the same "t seconds before impact" as your zero, calculate the probability of the CME being coincidence, vs. the probability of it being causally related.

In the last 15 years, we've observed nearly two thousand comets getting close enough to the sun to evaporate completely. CMEs can happen where from 0.2 to 3 times a day average depending on the part of the cycle. The probability of coincidence is actually quite high.

Re: NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

Since it takes light 8-1/3 minutes to reach us, you must be dead already.

Re: NBD, it seems

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean you wouldn't pay off your credit cards? :-)

Translation please!

[Black Parrot]

sent charged particles streaking outward at 380 miles per second. That's just over 1.3 million mph (2.2 million km/h).

Could you give that in manhattans^(1/2) per dog year, too?

Re:Translation please!

[Anonymous Coward]

does stating it as .11c salve your elitist soul?

Re:Translation please!

[egcagrac0]

Could you give that in manhattans^(1/2) per dog year, too?

On a scale of one to tipsy, I'd say it's right between ocelot feathers and 7!.

Re:Translation please!

[SJHillman]

Putting it in terms relative to the speed of light does help a lot. It won't make a huge difference to most casual readers, but anyone who knows that the Earth is roughly 8 lightminutes away from the sun (fairly common knowledge) can easily use the .11c to figure out exactly how fast it is in a meaningful way. Using mph/kph isn't meaningful to most readers because it's on such a different scale from anything else we'd normally measure in mph/kph.

Re:Translation please!

[wonkey_monkey]

380 miles per second

.11c

Uh... no.

Re:Translation please!

[jellomizer]

Well for the most of us, Miles per second doesn't really relate to our frame of reference.
1 Mile per second is really fast for us. Heck a Mile per Minute is usually what we consider driving rather fast.
We don't think of speed in Miles per second, but Miles per Hours or Kilometers per hour.

So converting to Miles per Hour and Kilometers per hour when they talk about speed, is there to help the general public get a good sense of the speed in terms they normally deal with.

It also gives us a better understanding of the vastness of space. The fact that the Sun is still 5 days away at 1.3 million miles per hour. Puts things into perspective better than 380 miles per second.

Re:Translation please!

[GameboyRMH]

Actually yes, that's much more useful, thanks.

Re:Translation please!

[Tynin]

380 miles per second

.11c

Uh... no.

.11c would be ~20491 miles per second, quite the difference indeed.

Re:Translation please!

[TCQuad]

Wolfram's coming up with 295.4 million root Manhattans per dog year.

Re:Translation please!

[Immerman]

I disagree. 380 miles is a distance we can wrap our heads around - we've probably personally traveled that far many times. 1 second is a time we clearly understand as well. And so we can kinda visualize just how fast 380miles/s might be. Yikes!

1.3 million mph on the other hand is just a really big number, way beyond our ability to comprehend it. Most people start having trouble actually visualizing what a number means long before it even reaches the thousands - the difference between several thousand and several million is essentially non-existent to our imagination. If you knew offhand that the Earth is about 24,000 miles around perhaps you could try to scale that down to visualize it as going around the world 52 times in an hour, but how many people truly have an intuitional-level understanding of just how big the world really is? A fraction of a percent I'd wager.

Re: Translation please!

[r33per]

That's about the length of Scotland per second.

You know, Scotland: that other place she's the Queen of...

Check out the video though !

[ACK!!]

The whole icy comet diving into the sun and the bad ass far-side Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is worth the 1:20 of your time. Very cool. Watching it happen is like watching something out of an old video game very interesting. Science can be quite a wild thing at times.

Re:Check out the video though !

[jrumney]

Even cooler is the fact that it was posted by a time traveller.

Published on 19 Aug 2013

During the late hours of August 20th, an unnamed icy comet...

Re:Check out the video though !

[Thud457]

It's called a sun dive. Sun ... Dive. It's very simple to understand. What do you expect if you steal Hotblack Desiato's stunt ship?''

Re:Check out the video though !

[pr0t0]

The comet looks massive! It's hard to get a sense of it's scale given the sun's corona and the comet's corona, but that thing looks like a planetoid streaking in there. Is there any news on how big that was?

Re:Check out the video though !

[Alain Williams]

But why do they need an awful soundtrack ? What is wrong with silence ?

Re:Check out the video though !

[Anonymous Coward]

Even cooler is the fact that it was posted by a time traveller.

Published on 19 Aug 2013

During the late hours of August 20th, an unnamed icy comet...

Time zones, how do they work?

Re:Check out the video though !

[Raenex]

Is there any news on how big that was?

If only there was a search engine to find out such answers. Alas, I guess we'll never know.

Re:Check out the video though !

[Anonymous Coward]

The size of the dust/gas plume from a comet *is* huge (they can be hundreds of thousands to about a hundred million km long), but extraordinarily diffuse (many thousands of times more diffuse than cigarette smoke). The coma is the inner part, and the tail is the part blown back by the solar wind. The comet nucleus (the actual hard part that is vaporizing and shedding all the gas and dust) is typically tens of km in size, and therefore very small by comparison. A few really big comets get up into the 100km range. So, most of what you're seeing is coma and tail puffed out from the nucleus.

Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Derec01]

The sun is vast, and that outward pulse appears to happen almost simultaneous with the impact of the comet.

Which means I very much doubt it's related, as an effect would still have to have traveled at least some major fraction of the Sun's radius and back before the event would have been triggered.

Granted, I suppose the comet could have been traveling away from us, and since the signal of the blast is traveling *toward* us, it basically pulled a Picard Maneuver and partially overtook the comet light.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[DeathToBill]

But what if the sun-dwellers saw the comet coming?

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[lightknight]

Hmm. Solar eruptions due to things dropping into the sun...

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Derec01]

Sure, simultaneity is far from the only or strongest reason that's silly. But it is the one written as "Oh, isn't it interesting that..." in the summary. I don't like *wink-nudge* suggestions like that in scientific summaries. Just say it's unrelated.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[wonkey_monkey]

Who's saying the events are causally connected?

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[thaylin]

IF you watch the eary videos it shows a mass ejecting from both sides. Now if you consider that the comet is traveling VERY FAST, and that most transfers like this does not require the item to actually travel, just the atoms to shift.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Anonymous Coward]

The article doesn't seem to imply they are related anyway, but nonetheless... The comet did not get anywhere near close to the solar surface, and the source region for the CME was on the other side of the Sun. Furthermore, there's no physical process we know of that could cause a CME to be initiated by a comet. (Solar flares are perhaps a different story, but they're not the same as CMEs.) The comet-CME thing has been discussed a few times now: http://www.isoncampaign.org/karl/sungrazers-and-cmes

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Zorpheus]

This seems to be a time lapse video, and it is not clear how much it is sped up.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[gstoddart]

But it is the one written as "Oh, isn't it interesting that..." in the summary. I don't like *wink-nudge* suggestions like that in scientific summaries. Just say it's unrelated.

Except, can we conclusively say it's unrelated??

Certainly the two events were correlated -- if the CME happened at pretty much the same time as the comet impact, it's definitely interesting to note that.

I mean, what are the odds that at mostly the same time you're seeing the one event, the other has just happened? In all likelihood the comet didn't have enough mass to have any affect on the sun, but it's definitely not obvious why the two events should happen so closely together.

If I crash my car into a lamp post, and at that same time the building next to me explodes ... it's hard not to think "WTF happened here?". You wouldn't expect my impact with the lamp post to have enough energy or connection to the exploding building but you'd certainly notice it.

So, either this is a really freak occurrence where two interesting but totally unrelated things happened at the same time (and I have no reason to believe it isn't) .. or something really fascinating was at work that nobody has a clue about.

Of course, it's a completely un-testable thing since we can't just crash comets into the sun on demand ... but I would definitely agree with wording at as "Interestingly", if for nothing else than the sheer coincidence of the timing when you're talking about things on an astronomical scale.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Anonymous Coward]

The electric universe people have been saying comets are not what we think they are for awhile now.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/latest-tblog/

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[joe_frisch]

Any idea of the relative kinetic energy of the comet and the mass ejection? Solar impacting objects are moving quite fast, and the corona is rather diffuse, still I would expect the CME to represent a lot more energy, with no clear mechanism for triggering by the comet impact.

There is enough time for electromagnetic signals to transmit the information across the sun. The comet presumably looks like a clump of fast moving plasma by the time it hits.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[angelbar]

What Picar Maneuver?, it adjust its jacket? *hides behind screen*

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[gr8_phk]

Since CMEs occur as a result of an abrupt change in the suns magnetic field (lines snapping to a new location) it does not seem implausible that a foreign object entering the outer reaches of some magnetic field loops should cause such a shift prior to impact. The even on the opposite side seems odd to me though. Ultimately we need to have a history of such impacts with mapping of the magnetic field in order to decide if the CME was triggered by the comet or not. Just more impacts without CMEs don't rule it out depending on the suns magnetic field in the area. Of course it could be random chance too.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[mdielmann]

Of course, it's a completely un-testable thing since we can't just crash comets into the sun on demand ... but I would definitely agree with wording at as "Interestingly", if for nothing else than the sheer coincidence of the timing when you're talking about things on an astronomical scale.

Of course it's testable. Here it is. Wait and observe until a few more large bodies hit the sun. Observe results. Done. Isn't this how most astronomy and astrophysics research is done?

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[mdielmann]

I don't normally reply to myself, but I watched the video, and other linked videos. Here's one from October 2011. Looks like this one wasn't entirely inconsistent with past behaviour.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[AdamHaun]

If you watch the video, you can see that the CME happens before the comet hits, and actually vaporizes the comet on the way out.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[adolf]

If you watch the video, you can see that the CME happens before the comet hits, and actually vaporizes the comet on the way out.

Indeed. I conclude from this that the sun was merely defending itself against an invasion.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Anonymous Coward]

"Except, can we conclusively say it's unrelated??"

No, but police investigating a car accident don't typically focus their attention on the mosquito that happened to hit the car windshield moments before the car went off the road. Scale matters.

Then there's the observation that hundreds upon hundreds of comets have been observed impacting the sun or vaporizing in its close proximity over the years, and the vast majority do not have CMEs associated with them. If there was a significant correlation, it would have been noticed a long time ago with some statistics.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Bob the Super Hamste]

There was an article in the August 14, 2013 The New Scientist about just such a thing.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Bob the Super Hamste]

It sounds like work is already being done on this.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Anonymous Coward]

The electric universe people have been saying comets are not what we think they are for awhile now.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/latest-tblog/

The electric universe people say a lot of things that pretty much put them in astrology territory, so we don't really need to listen to them, much less link to them.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[TheFakeMcCoy]

Clearly some of the sun-dewllers, sunnians, (we really should come up with a proper name to ease their take over of the planet) panicked when they saw the coment and sent their only child to earth to live amongst our people as a beacon of hope... unfortunately it will just smash into magentosphere and disrupt gps and direct tv.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Immerman]

The CME wasn't "even on the opposite side", it only looks that way because it's coming straight at the camera. Considering that the comet's apparent (2-D) distance was still over a solar-radius away from the sun when the CME occurred that would mean it was probably at least 60 degrees of solar longitude away from the CME. Not *impossible* that it was somehow related, but highly unlikely.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[Anonymous Coward]

There's no need for the kinetic energy to be related at all. CME's happen all the time. One may have been on the brink, and the comet sent it over the edge. A needle doesn't need much energy to pop a balloon that's got much more stored energy in it..

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[joe_frisch]

True, but it is probably easier to imagine mechanisms that don't need a lot of energy gain.

Re:Simultaneity problem with that comet

[thegarbz]

The CME is stored energy contained by the sun's magnetic fields. It only takes a small disruption to the magnetic field to release it.

I would be looking at comparing the energy of the comet to the energy required to prevent CMEs, not the total energy released by the event.

manhattans^(1/2) per dog year

[barlevg]

294,585,994

One word

[RivenAleem]

*Burp*

Re:One word

[Lithdren]

Hahaha the sun burped at us!

Wait...wait if the comet hit one side of the sun...and the CME came from th...the oth..

Oh god...

A giant solar is flare heading this way?? OK.

[Picass0]

http://i.imgur.com/pSjeKtk.png

Check your math

[barlevg]

2.2e6 kph = 0.002c...

Spell Check

[Anonymous Coward]

" dove into the sun and disintegrated nearly a the same time (video)."

AT the same time

Re:Spell Check

[bobbied]

Know misspelled words their so I-Spell will knot catch thee problem.. What Eu halve is eh grammar is shew.

I guess ....

[PPH]

... Ballmer got the message.

In other news...

[Narcocide]

My wireless just died.

Re:Meanwhile The Fucktarded Shitdot Sheeple Fags a

[fredrated]

Run! Charles Manson is out of jail!

obvious

[slashmydots]

The timing is just too perfect. This is obviously an alien missile testing our resistance to EM radiation and charged particles and stuff.

Re:obvious

[ArcadeMan]

The CME happened right before the ice comet hit the Sun. We could also speculate that aliens fired that ice coment into the Sun to diminish the strength of the CME, hence saving all our asses.

Re:obvious

[slashmydots]

Looooool who the hell modded that informative? OP here btw.

Coincidence, I Think NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

An icy comet stabs the Sun.

A huge coronal mass ejection heads towards Earth.

Microsoft stock soars.

Only now do I realize that the stock market is tied to ass-troll-logical events.

Giving plot to real life

[gmuslera]

Somewhat the sun was hit by an "unnamed" comet, and then the Sun is sending an eruption right into our direction, as it was a connection between those events. Is not uncommon that the sun is hit by comets. Unless this one had a core of exotic matter or was a disguised photon torpedo should be no relation between those events..

That was no comet

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

That was a Disaster Area stunt ship.

time to make tinfoil hats

[Anonymous Coward]

SHIT my local grocery store is sold out of tin foil. Seems everyone beat me to it :-(

Re:A giant solar is flare heading this way?? OK.

[nomorecwrd]

How big is this flare? Can it be measured in terms of Star Trek movies?

aurora

[Anonymous Coward]

Living practically on the polar circle, I look forward to some more good aurora (as I saw some good ones last night)

Rasputin knew it

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't you get the memo? It's the end of the world.

When the sun burst out, never again will grow any bushes on the hills of Volga.

Grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

"Dove" is a bird that represents peace. "Dived" is the past tense of the verb "to dive". LEARN IT!

Re:Grammar

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Looks like we found a grammar nazi with a limited vocabulary. "Dove" (rhymes with "trove") is a perfectly acceptable (and commonly used) past tense of "dive".

Re:Grammar

[Anonymous Coward]

This is recent, as in, mid-80's recent. Just because it's fashionable, doesn't make it correct. http://grammarist.com/usage/dove-dived/

Goo

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Yawn. Wake me when a giant asteroid is about to hit us.

Ya know what? Not even then.

storm hasn't reached us yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

i think this is the kind of solar storm that can disrupt shortwave radio, right? or am i thinking about solar flares or sun spots?

so i was listening to the shortwave radio. band conditions / reception was wost than last week. i thought the solar storm had reached us because I could hardly hear anyone below 8 MHz on SSB. AM broadcast stations are kinda strong, but they fade in and out. Haven't heard much above 8 MHz either, not even WWV on 10 MHz.

Oh, I've wasted my life.

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

At least the trolling will end...

Re:Woot! I pissed off the fucktarded shitdot sheep

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should get out more, get some exercise, drink some beers, whatever. Trolling slashdot is just so...futile. Nobody cares. And it sounds like it's not doing you any good really (you sound angry, lots of stress hormones, bad for you physically and mentally).

Why am I bothering to reply? I'm only typing this to fill in a few seconds before I leave work and go for a nice long walk to get my appetite up, followed by a few big drinks and some good food. Bye.

One of my favorites

[jratcliffe]

Astrophysicist walks into a bar, orders a Mexican beer. Bartender yells, "OK, that's it, everybody out NOW!!!" As they're all leaving, another customer asks the astrophysicist, "what the heck is going on?" Astrophysicist replies "Coronal Mass Ejection."

Re:One of my favorites

[Anonymous Coward]

A coroner walks into a porn movie... Oh ok, you already heard that one?

Re:A giant solar is flare heading this way?? OK.

[Anonymous Coward]

How big is this flare? Can it be measured in terms of Star Trek movies?

About 1.3 J.J. Abrams lens flares - so yeah it's huge!

Had a good laugh this morning

[Anonymous Coward]

I joked a few months ago that I really wanted to see ISON hit a CME and see what happens. I got the next best thing, and the results are in: nothing really happens.

Solar observing from home

[umafuckit]

For those who are interested, it's possible to get the feeds from the orbital solar observatories and make your own movies of the Sun in action. A nice piece of software to automate this is jhelioviewer: http://jhelioviewer.org/ You can even purchase a small solar telescope that will allow you to view the sun safely at hydrogen alpha wavelengths (at which a lot of features are visible). A popular beginner scope is the Meade PST: http://www.meade.com/product_pages/coronado/scopes/pst.php (Lunt is another good manufacturer). With that you can see solar flares, prominences, sun spots, etc. Prominences are particularly fun because they change visibly over the time-course of minutes; so you can literally see the Sun watch the sun change before your eyes. Here's a link on what's possible to see visually: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org/resources/solar-observing/observing-the-sun-in-h-alpha/

Right back at ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell the sun I just unleashed an eruption that is headed its way too

Look at the comet flying into the sun...

[Anonymous Coward]

Did the sun just get pregnant!?

my star trigger test was successful

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like my Star Trigger test was successful.

Now I can continue with the rest of the plan. bwahahaha!

Re:my star trigger test was successful

[Thud457]

I told Chmee to plot a route so the orbits wouldn't intersect. Now he's triggered the automated defenses and burned off all his fur.

Standard warning

[Anonymous Coward]

The next few days will be the hardest, just remember - They are no longer your friends or your family, they are mindless killers now. Always aim for the head and try to conserve ammo.

Good

[AndyKron]

Good. I hope it burns us to a fucking crisp

You had me going there

[Provocateur]

I was right with you there until you decided to lump everything else (possibly related) under "stuff"

Steve Ballmer

[puddingebola]

And it happens at the same time that Steve Ballmer announces retirement. And people say Astrology is crap.

Space Sex

[Suffering Bastard]

Looks to me like the comet is a sperm cell impregnating the Sun...then the Sun has an orgasm.

How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

How sad it is that the news and comments focus on the CME or the absurdity of the CME making news...instead of the comet. How often does a comet plunge into the sun? That should be the news and topic of discussions.

Re:How sad

[Anonymous Coward]

How often does a comet plunge into the sun?

About a hundred times a year one is seen to come close enough to the Sun to evaporate by SOHO. Nearly 2000 have been seen so far and you can even find pictures with several in view at the same time. During the half of the cycle around the solar minimum, you can have sun-grazing comets be more common than CMEs.

Apocalypse Now

[slash.jit]

Oh... Is it time for another Doomsday movie ?

Is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Some girl wrote the date of impact down and buried it in a time capsule, like 50 years ago. This is old news...

No, it hasn't if you read the plot correctly...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking back through their log for maps you may have seen at the time of your post, you seem to be reading that plot wrong. The blue is not the aurora circle, the orange is a potential area that could be the aurora circle, and it doesn't look like it went past the US-Canada border, which is not that uncommon.

awesome! awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

a video link that plays in firefox without flash! TEH BEST!
GOOD WORK!
-
i had a power blackout 2 days ago (21august) ...about 2 hours.

Comets and Flares: Both Partake of Plasma

[Anonymous Coward]

Although comets have been historically thought to be 'dirty snowballs', that is beginning to change.

Electric Universe theorists posit that most phenomena we observe - including the Sun, itself - are largely electrical in nature. They observe that more energy is emitted by a star than can be explained by the theories of gravitational compression and fusion. They point out that a comet's tail does not point away from the Sun,and also point out 'braiding' patterns in the tails of comets - phenomena more commonly associated with plasma, than with slowly evaporating snowballs.

If one thinks of the sun as a giant electric arc - a point of ignition,amongst many, at one of many nexii, in a network of galactically scaled electrical circuits, composed of plasma, and connecting the stars, and galaxies, together - then, I have no problem considering the possibility that the comet's arrival at the surface of the sun was electromagnetically connected to the ejection of coronal material, in the same time frame.

Here It Comes...

[Scarletdown]

It could be worse. At least it wasn't an eruption from Uranus.

If anyone really cares

[sternlight]

You can get regular email geomagnetic storm reports and forecasts classified by severity. This one didn't rattle any expert's cages

Sephiroth's Supernova!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sephiroth is still alive! he sent that comet!

i had a coronal mass ejection

[Anonymous Coward]

earlier today

Tuesday? And it's posted on Friday?

[doccus]

This would have never slipped by the editors with the old /. And it was a crap CME anyways. Is somebody trying to repeatedly trying to push the panic button?

Electric Universe.

[Anonymous Coward]

This event falls neatly into the comprehensive idea that objects in our solar system carry varying electric charges and cause discharges when they interact with each other. It's not that complicated, really. Comet are not dirty snowballs and their tails are not twinkling bits of water vapor. They're charged up like neon tubes in the solar wind.

Also, the uptick in news about scary solar flares also fits into one of the evolving narratives being presented to dissuade people from paying attention to all these damned rocks falling out of the sky.

If you can blame infrastructure shocks due to cometary impacts on 'terrorists' and CME events, then your pathocratic control system might confuse people enough to survive growing criticism for another week or two.

The elites cannot protect us from comets, so they're doing everything they can to distract us from the problem until they're safely ensconced in their little vaults.

But don't worry. We'll be resorting to the guillotine routine soon enough.

Well It's Sunday

[tmjva]

Well it's Sunday and we're all still h