Early this morning, the Sun erupted with an explosion I can only describe as ginormous. We’re in no danger from it, but the size and scope of this thing are simply spectacular. Here’s a video I put together of the event using Helioviewer, a public-domain solar viewer:
Yowza! [Make sure to set the resolution to at least 720p, and make it full screen to get the full effect.]
What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of pent-up magnetic energy) coupled with a prominence (a physical eruption of gas from the surface). This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the Sun. Note the size of it, too: while it started from a small region on the Sun’s surface, it quickly expanded into a plume easily as big as the Sun itself! I’d estimate its size at well over a million kilometers across. It looks like most of the material fell back down to the Sun’s surface; that’s common, though sometimes such an event manages to blast the material completely away into space.
The above video shows the Sun in the ultraviolet (304 Angstroms for those playing at home, quite a bit bluer than what the eye can naturally see) and is colored orange to make it easy to see. The folks at Helioviewer put together a close-up looking at even higher energy; it’s still UV but at 171 Angstroms:
Again, may I say, yowza! The material is silhouetted against the Sun’s brighter surface, making it appear dark. I think the expanding circle you can see is a shock wave pummeling the Sun’s surface, but it might be a line-of-sight effect of the edge of the explosion, like seeing a soap bubble’s bright edge.
You can read more about this event at the very cool Geeked on Goddard blog. The energy of the event was colossal. A good flare can release up to 10% of the Sun’s total energy, the equivalent of billions of nuclear bombs exploding. What’s funny to me is that this wasn’t all that big a flare; it was rated as a class M2.5, far lower in energy than the vast explosions from the Sun back in February.
Again, the good news is that we’re not in any danger from this; it wasn’t aimed our way (most of these types of events miss us). But as I’ve said before, the solar cycle is heating up and we can expect to see more incredible events from our friendly neighborhood star in the coming years.
Credit: NASA/SDO, animation made using Helioviewer. [Note: I had originally used the wrong units when indicating the wavelength of light seen in the videos -- nanometers instead of Angstroms -- so I've corrected that and changed the text a bit to make it clearer.]
Related posts:
- Incredible solar flare video
- kaBLAM! Footage of the X class solar flare
- Sunspot 1158 ain’t done yet
- The birth of a sunspot cluster
- Followup: Sunspot group’s loopy magnetism
- First earthward-heading solar flare of the cycle
- Arc of dissent
- The Sun blasts out a flare and a huge filament
June 7th, 2011 at 10:26 am
He-he-he. The Sun lit a fart.
June 7th, 2011 at 10:28 am
Looks like the sun burst a zit
June 7th, 2011 at 10:30 am
Get that star some Pepto!
June 7th, 2011 at 10:33 am
Wowser! In the 2nd video, after the initial blast, are we seeing the flashes of ejected material falling back and impacting the surface? Amazing!
June 7th, 2011 at 10:38 am
What fascinates me what looks like splash points where the material falls back onto the sun’s surface…
June 7th, 2011 at 10:53 am
The main event on Helio is here; http://bit.ly/l7dhQx
Amazing. Even over 5 minutes theses distances are staggering
June 7th, 2011 at 10:59 am
[SHREK]
Better out than in, I always say.
[/SHREK]
June 7th, 2011 at 11:01 am
Stars are F*&*#ing cool!
June 7th, 2011 at 11:08 am
@Tony #8: For certain definitions of cool
June 7th, 2011 at 11:09 am
What would be the effect if something like that were aimed at Earth?
June 7th, 2011 at 11:10 am
I think it’s a KAMEHAMEHA! waahhaha
June 7th, 2011 at 11:13 am
[...] me of this thread, so I thought I'd engage in a little bit of necromancy. The post can be found here. In the post, he linked a video he prepared using [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Spectacular! Is the video sped up? If so, how long does something like take to play out in real time?
June 7th, 2011 at 11:22 am
that is a Star Trek scale star explosion. Very cool imagery.
June 7th, 2011 at 11:24 am
OMG!!! WAIT!! WAIT!!! So what you’re saying is that that solar eruption was the cause of the earthquake in Missouri early this morning also!?!?!?! So more earthquakes are coming? Camping was right!!!*
*heavy use of sarcasm*
June 7th, 2011 at 11:41 am
@megamoze: The first video has tiny timestamps in the lower left. The video covers roughly a 10 to 12 hour period. (I’m not very good at freeze-framing YouTube videos.)
June 7th, 2011 at 11:42 am
Wow… Of all of the “burst from the sun” videos I’ve seen (mostly here) this is the first one that “feels” as violent as they are.
June 7th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
We were using a Coronado PST H-alpha telescope yesterday, and we could see 9 prominences at about 1:30 or so Pacific Time. The Sun was looking very active…
June 7th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
#10 Timmy
see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm
June 7th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
I can’t imagine the kind of energy required to launch all those tons of material high up into the space against the Sun’s gravity.
It’s extraordinary.
Is there a time scale for the video, was it an event occurring in minutes or hours?
June 7th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Here’s another angle on the spectacular plume ya’ll might appreciate. Helioviewer put this together also.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKOMajibOIg
Anyone notice how there’s a lot more noise in the camera after the event, even though it wasn’t directed towards us? Should we expect some aurora out of this?
June 7th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
How much mass was ejected? Any reasonably accurate estimates?
June 7th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
[...] Magazine: The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion Related Posts:{Breaking} JAPAN – TEPCO – EXPLOSION AT FUKUSHIMA DAIICHIMANIPULATION, [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 1:44 pm
Phil, I have a couple of questions, if you’ve time to address them.
1) Do events like this ever bathe Mercury in stellar material, or, as close in as it is, it’s still too far away for that to happen?
2) What would a flare like this do to MESSENGER if it and Mercury happened to be in the path?
Thanks!
June 7th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
It’d be wicked cool to see, somewhere in the video frame, a sphere the size of Earth superimposed to give scale to the eruption.
June 7th, 2011 at 1:53 pm
[...] Credit: NASA, SDO AIA via Phil Plait [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 1:57 pm
John Nouveaux @ 25: I get a Solar diameter of 300 pixels on my screen, which with a 1 to 109.12 ratio of Earth to Sun diameters, results in a 2.75 pixel diameter for the Earth, in that (the top, 304nm) movie clip… It’s a bit on the dinky side of things, compared to the Sun
Cheers,
Regner
June 7th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
[...] “This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the Sun. Note the size of it, too: while it started from a small region on the Sun’s surface, it quickly expanded into a plume easily as big as the Sun itself! I’d estimate its size at well over a million kilometers across. It looks like most of the material fell back down to the Sun’s surface; that’s common, though sometimes such an event manages to blast the material completely away into space.” (Source: Discover Magazine) [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
[...] For an impressive example of the sun’s power on display today, see the video Phil Plait shared. And if that radiation reaches earth, it might lead to people singing this song. [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
You are incorrect about the wavelength of the ultraviolet light the AIA instruments use. It’s 30.4 nm, not 304 nm, and 17.1 nm not 171 nm. The numbers are given in angstroms, not nanometers.
You might also be interested to note that there was an impulsive high energy proton event associated with this flare. Only some 30 minutes after the flare peak the proton flux >30MeV increased dramatically in L1 and geosynchronous orbit. This would put a lower limit of the speed at a weakly relativistic 0.3c.
I wrote a bit about this on my reddit post from this morning, links to the data sources are included: http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/htn7q/tuesday_morning_m25_solar_flare_huge_eruptive/
June 7th, 2011 at 2:50 pm
That was huge wow. Amazing
June 7th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Fuel stop gone awry?
June 7th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
Wow!
June 7th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
[...] Plait at the Bad Astronomy blog says this wasn’t even a big flare, rated class M2.5. A much more powerful X2 class flare was [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 3:34 pm
[...] Plait over at Bad Astronomy figures that–and he’s just eyeballing/ballparking this thing here–that something [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
The Sun lets loose larger than normal explosion…
Just think of the size of this flare and the energy it released! This is what’s great about technology….
June 7th, 2011 at 4:43 pm
[...] The animation here is from the ultraviolet camera, colored orange to make it viewable. Here's a blog post with details and more video SJ __________________ Security is mostly a [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
[...] Vía | Bad astronomy [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Τεράστια ηλιακή έκρηξη – Bad Astronomy…
Πριν λίγες ώρες. Εντυπωσιακό βίντεο….
June 7th, 2011 at 5:24 pm
[...] source: the bad astronomer [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 5:35 pm
Hmm … how about gargantuan? Brobdingnagian? Titanic? Colossal? Vast? Huge or “Huuuuuuggee” as we might pronounce it?
Astronomically large?
I like my adjectives, I do. Spectacular in any case!
June 7th, 2011 at 5:55 pm
For those who’d like an explanation of “Brobdingnagian” see :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brobdingnag
Great word – along with “Lilliputian” for it’s antonym :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilliput_and_Blefuscu
- from a great book by a very smart satirist.
Jonathan Swift also correctly “predicted” the moons of Mars in ‘Guillivers Travels’ although his reasoning there was a tad unscientific – since Jupiter was then known as having four moons and Earth one it seemed reasonable to “give” Mars two – and since we hadn’t seen them already they had to be very small. Which, of course, Phobos and Deimos are.
Aptly then, several craters on Mars’ moon Phobos are named after Lilliputians. Not sure if the Brobdingnagians got any astronomical places named after them. But the word “Yahoo” also coined by Swift :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo_(Gulliver%27s_Travels)
has become a lot more familiar for some reason today!
June 7th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Nanometres?
June 7th, 2011 at 6:08 pm
Ah, perhaps it was an impact with a primordial black hole,,,
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26839/?nlid=4559
Dang, that’s some impressive videography.
Gary 7
June 7th, 2011 at 6:27 pm
Y’know, it was my birthday day (happy 42 to me), and here I was feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t have a cake with candles on it. Ok, this makes up for it, about a quadrillion times over!
June 7th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
Can someone post a link? All I’m getting are big blank spaces where the videos should be. Thanks.
June 7th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
@ ^ Mike : Happy birthday then!
***
Also how about Leviathanesque, Cyclopedean* and Behemothic!?
Alternatively Elephantine, Rhodean (from the Colossous of Rhodes statute) and plain old SuperMassive?
PS. Did you know there’s actually another word for thesauarus – onomasticon – I kid you not!
* Trivia for today : In the original Greek mythology, the Cyclops were giants as well as one-eyed. Perhaps the most famous of all the Cyclops the one in The Odyssey was actually named Polyphemous or so I gather.
June 7th, 2011 at 7:46 pm
[...] Plait over at Bad Astronomy figures that–and he’s just eyeballing/ballparking this thing here–that something like [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
And I was going to blame my cell phone provider for bad reception. This goes to show that, after all, we’re all so tiny compared to the universe! To hell with my cell phone, this is much more interesting.
June 7th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
[...] Source: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/ [...]
June 7th, 2011 at 9:01 pm
He’s broken free from his prision! Finally!
June 7th, 2011 at 9:13 pm
I wish my eyes were sensitive wavelengths as short as 304 A. What a different world it would seem in the spectrum between 304A and 700nm.
June 7th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
The violence of this explosion is further proof of the destructiveness of the Republican agenda against Obama
When will people realize that going green, becoming carbon neutral and becoming a better more ecologically conscious person is the only way to prevent these disasters.
If we all renew our pledges to serve our president, we can stop these, save the planet and preserve our social welfare system.
June 7th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
I suppose fans of that awful movie “Knowing” are thinking that this is justification for the climactic event at the end of said movie. I would love to have read a review of that movie here (remember when Phil had time to do movie reviews?), especially if it would have prevented me from wasting my time watching the movie.
Anyway, these real videos of the sun’s latest blast are stunning! I actually gasped at the first one, even though I had just read what to expect… actually seeing it happen was just amazing!
June 7th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
UV at 304 angstroms just below the visible spectrum? unit check?
June 7th, 2011 at 10:41 pm
304 Angstroms is a *lot* bluer than what the eye can naturally see (order of magnitude, you know).
June 7th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Hey, non flash for those of us with crappy machines?
June 8th, 2011 at 12:18 am
[...] [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 1:10 am
[...] Bad Astronomy: What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of pent-up magnetic energy) [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 2:28 am
[...] Quelle: Discover-Magazine-Blog [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 2:36 am
Come on .. we all have to fart sometime.
June 8th, 2011 at 2:36 am
I think, it’s like a safety ventil, sometimes, when the pressure is too high it opens…
June 8th, 2011 at 2:42 am
300 Angstroms or 30 nm is more than just a bit bluer than what the eye can see (generally about 400-750 nm). It would be classed as “extreme” UV and is pretty close to x-rays.
June 8th, 2011 at 3:18 am
[...] HomeNewsThe Sun lets loose a huge explosionThe Sun lets loose a huge explosionJune 8, 2011Source: Discover Badn — June 7, 2011On June 7, the Sun released a solar flare coupled with a prominence (a physical [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 3:32 am
[...] June 7, the Sun released a solar flare coupled with a prominence (a physical eruption of gas from the surface). This event [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 3:38 am
[...] sun belched out a billion tons of material only to have it mostly fall back on its [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 4:53 am
That’s incredible.
Now, if only we could harness the power of the Sun, and use it for good instead of just pretty pictures. Maybe some form of energy capture device that takes the EM radiation and converts it into useful electricity. Does such a thing exist, and if not why not?
June 8th, 2011 at 5:41 am
Julie (24) said:
Mercury is permanently bathed in stellar material, because it receives the highest flux of solar wind in the system.
A coronal mass ejection (CME) would certainly increase the flux of solar wind hitting Mercury.
June 8th, 2011 at 5:48 am
[...] the surface). This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the SSource:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/ ( Leave a comment [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 6:46 am
ginormous! If I could only comprehend the scale. Seriously, when words and pictures and comparisons do not convey the magnitude. .. Today the sun farted out a blast the size of Jupiter hot enough to vaporize rock and steel in 1 milli micro second.
June 8th, 2011 at 7:42 am
For those asking about the wavelength, I left the phrase “a bit bluer” in because I was trying to use a little humor to underscore the phrase, but I see it doesn’t translate well in text. I changed that to say “quite a bit bluer” to be more clear.
FWIW I’ve done research using UV cameras so I’m familiar with the wavelengths involved. The use of nanometers originally was a hiccup in my brain.Happens sometimes.
June 8th, 2011 at 9:04 am
And apparently the eruption will mean good aurora watching tonight:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/2011/06/08
Wish I lived further north. I’ve never see the aurora.
June 8th, 2011 at 10:02 am
[...] Today via Bad Astronomy via PopSci) Categories: Interesting, Videos Tags: explosion, solar flare, space, Sun, [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 10:24 am
[...] then yesterday, June 7, the sun let loose what BadAstronomer termed a “ginormous” [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 11:20 am
[...] The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion (Discover Magazine) [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Whats interesting is that as you watch the material fall back down towards the surface (yeah, I know it’s not really a “surface”, whatever), it doesn’t follow a normal, sub-orbital trajectory. The material obviously has some magnetic moment that gets pushed around by the Sun’s twisted magnetic field.
June 8th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
[...] Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait stresses the eruption isn’t dangerous, though it shot an enormous amount of gas and solar material into space. Nevertheless, Plait described it as “ginormous:” [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 12:25 pm
[...] The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion (Discover [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
[...] The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion (Discover [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
At : moregrey
Amazing, indeed !
June 8th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
[...] What do you have copied? Paste it. No cheating! The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
[...] More of the story is at Discover magazine. [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
[...] the surface). This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the SSource:http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-sun-lets-loose-a-huge-explosion/ Posted by Paola Fuentes at [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
[...] Vía ¿Te ha gustado lo que has visto? ¡Compártelo, menéalo o vótalo! ¡Gracias! 000 Guardado en: Animales/Naturaleza, ciencia, Curiosidades, Vídeos Ningún comentario ¡Comenta! [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
[...] The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion [...]
June 8th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
[...] Phil Plait of Bad Astronomy and author of Death from the Skies posted this video and explanation: [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 3:18 am
[...] Here’s my blog post with details and more video: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/07/the-sun-lets-loose-… [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 10:30 am
[...] Solar Dynamics Observatory captured photos of an enormous eruption on the Sun on the morning of June 7. What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 10:59 am
[...] Vía [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 11:25 am
[...] Feuerwerk für den neuen Bratwurstkönig webschnorcheln organisiert. Gut, oder? Bitteschön. Discover darüber: What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of pent-up magnetic [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 1:35 pm
Phil, I see human (male) face there on the surface of the sun in full screen 720p version! Right next to upper bright area, left side of the bright spot. Seriously, has anyone else spotted it?
June 9th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
[...] in the sunJune 7, 2011 witnessed a huge explosion which is of celestial proportion. Another video More information at DiscoverWorldhuge explosion in the sunJune 10th, 2011No responseComment now! [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
[...] aides quit his doomed campaign “en masse”on Thursday,according to NPR.Sun explosion,via Bad Astronomy:June 9th,2011 | Category:Uncategorized var addedComment = [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 5:14 pm
[...] Phil Plait, the great internet astronomer, at Bad Astronomy [...]
June 9th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
[...] blog on the hi-def touchscreen network computer in my hand and clicked through to read more about the big solar flare this morning. While on the site I watched an amazing video of a billion tons of matter exploding out from the [...]
June 10th, 2011 at 6:13 am
“A good flare can release up to 10% of the Sun’s total energy”
Ammm that sounds pretty bad, give me ten of these and the sun is a gonner
I am sure that means 10% of the emitted energy at any one time
June 10th, 2011 at 10:54 am
[...] with a prominence. The sheer raw power is immense. More information and such can be found on the Bad Astronomy blog, which is well worth checking [...]
June 10th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
[...] Explosion on the Sun, info – [wow space]Google Body Browser: Wow Anatomy Experience – [useful]The “Killer [...]
June 12th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
[...] blogs.discovermagazine.com [...]
June 13th, 2011 at 4:39 am
So; We’re not the only place suffering “Global Warming”!
June 13th, 2011 at 10:44 am
[...] Läs mer: blogs.discovermagazine.com [...]
June 13th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
[...] внимание и Wired, и Bad Astronomy, и многих блогов помельче. Взрыв и впрямь вышел [...]
June 14th, 2011 at 7:59 am
is this why my cell phone sucks for the past 48 hrs?
June 30th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
In the second video it looks like there is some kind of event occuring in the air right before and above the explosion. Is that related — like a trigger or something? Maybe gasses igniting? I am not a scientist, just curious and impressed.
July 6th, 2011 at 9:23 am
[...] The Sun lets loose a HUGE explosion (w/ awesome video). [...]
July 13th, 2011 at 11:32 am
that is a Star Trek scale star explosion. Very cool imagery.
July 20th, 2011 at 5:14 am
[...] not aimed at the Earth, but was caught on camera by orbiting satellites. A number of sites (such as Bad Astronomy) have put together videos of the event, but hands-down, this is the best [...]
July 20th, 2011 at 9:02 am
[...] aimed at the Earth, but was caught on camera by orbiting satellites. A number of sites (such as Bad Astronomy) have put together videos of the event, but hands-down, this is the best [...]
August 18th, 2011 at 2:21 am
I’ve watched Nicholas Cage movie “Knowing” i hope that will not happen…but my instincts telling me it will… I have faith in god…he will not let the suns explosions reach us…
September 5th, 2011 at 7:47 am
Yes, finally we are all going to be burnt alive.
Oh no wait, thats a nightmare…. ^^
October 10th, 2011 at 5:20 am
It would be really dangerous if the sun explodes. Two explosions of the sun hyper sonic and super sonic.. Hyperconic is super dangerous. The sun will like “eat us!” EARTH will go to the sun’s atmosphere.
October 10th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
[...] of the Sun.See? Alan Friedman snapped this shot of an oddly familiar-looking solar prominence.[A] prominence [is] an eruption of ionized gas off the surface of the Sun, guided by the twisting and churning [...]
October 14th, 2011 at 6:02 pm
[...] http://www.helioviewer.org Brought to you by The Sun Today.Duration : 0:3:19[youtube Q_3u_0NN7OM] http://www.thesuntoday.org – I woke up to this event, aptly described in an email from a colleague -…304, 171 and 211 Angstrom channel cameras on SDO. Also included is a video from the LASCO C2 [...]
January 23rd, 2012 at 4:51 pm
Wow, that’s really cool, and I noticed a shockwave coming out from it, for about 3-4 frames. Really powerful looking.