Pictures: Entire Sun Rocked by Explosions

Solar Connections

Image courtesy K. Schrijver, A. Title, SDO/NASA

Links between activity on different parts of the sun can be seen in this image, which superimposes a map of the sun's magnetic field on an ultraviolet-light image of the growing August 1 storm. (See more sun pictures.)

Scientists had seen multiple events occurring together in smaller solar storms imaged by the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite but had been slow to realize how strongly the sun's magnetic field sews everything together.

(Related: "New Sunspot Pictures: Sharpest View Yet in Visible Light.")

Published December 20, 2010

"Extreme" Heat

Image courtesy NASA

A still from a NASA video of the August 1 ultraviolet emissions shows temperature variations in the sun's corona, which can range from 1.8 to 4 million°F (1 to 2.2 million°C).

The Solar Dynamics Observatory image reveals links among flare-ups hundreds of thousands of miles apart. "These events happen in step, over the whole diameter of the sun," said Karel Schrijver, a research scientist at the Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory in Palo Alto, California.

"So, 1.5 million kilometers [nearly a million miles] of the solar surface is involved at one time."

(See "Sun Erupts: Epic Blast Seen by NASA Solar Observatory.")

Published December 20, 2010

Hot Solar Jets

Image courtesy SOHO/NASA

Hot jets shoot from all directions in an August 1 solar coronagraph taken aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Coronographs block out the bright disk of the sun, allowing scientists to see the jets, whose energetic particles can make it all the way to Earth and threaten satellites and power grids. (Read "Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected.")

But accurate warnings are still a thing of the future. "We're where weather forecasters were 50 years ago," said Rodney Viereck, chief of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's space-weather prediction division.

Published December 20, 2010

Fiery Sun

Image courtesy SDO/NASA

Bright spots and flares can be seen in an August 1 Solar Dynamics Observatory picture taken in ultraviolet light.

These sharper views of the sun's activity may help scientists make better forecasts about sunspot explosions. (See "Sunspot Delay Due to Sluggish Solar 'Jet Stream'?")

"For years solar physicists have been looking for the causes of these explosions in the region that's exploding," said Lockheed Martin's Schrijver. Now scientists are realizing that the triggers may lie far, far away.

That's why scientists need to figure out the processes that store energy in regions where explosions will later occur, he added. "It's like thinking of an avalanche. If there's no snow there, there won't be an avalanche."

Published December 20, 2010