Comments on: Watch the Sun "burp"

By: lev36

lev36 — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Sometimes, I think about the fact that this impossibly huge thing, the entire thing, is fusing, and it just boggles my mind.

By: euansmith

euansmith — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:16:00 +0000

Thanks for answering my question before I asked it.

By: sccnnn

sccnnn — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 04:55:00 +0000

I’m sorry, but “coronal mass ejection” has always sounded to me like something that happens when you drink too much Mexican beer.

By: NelC

NelC — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:53:00 +0000

There's some info on the "More info" tag: the shots are from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO), which are respectively in Earth orbit, at the Sun-Earth L1 point between the Earth and the Sun, and at the Sun-Earth L5 point trailing 60° behind the Earth in its orbit. L1 and L5 are Lagrange points which are complicated to explain, so I'll let Wikipedia do it for me.

By: enterthestory

enterthestory — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 01:13:00 +0000

They missed the second part of the video: http://youtu.be/vN1SyaSdCeM

By: elricky

elricky — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:52:00 +0000

Interesting to note that the timescale of the actual eruption is measured not in seconds, as we experience it in the video, but in hours. NASA’s page says the movie was captured over almost 14 hours, “from noon EDT to 1:45 a.m. the next morning.”

By: bzishi

bzishi — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:44:00 +0000

This is nice. You can almost see the magnetic reconnection. At one point you see the plasma trapped in the magnetic field and then the switch is turned off.

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:13:00 +0000

More of a shart, really.

By: Senor Schaffer

Senor Schaffer — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:04:00 +0000

One does not simply belch into Mordor.

By: eldritch

eldritch — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:48:00 +0000

“Blowout soon, Stalker!”

By: lavardera

lavardera — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:38:00 +0000

How about our probe orbiting Mercury – was that out of the way?

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:34:00 +0000

The sun is one crazy bastard.

By: RobDobbs

RobDobbs — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:33:00 +0000

Does anyone know where these cameras are located? Was this shot from earth, or our orbit or someplace closer to the sun?

By: Neal Potter

Neal Potter — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 23:24:00 +0000

I love how impassive the greater Sun is to this, ‘no big deal, carry on’.

By: Petzl

Petzl — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:59:00 +0000

Any time I think about how the sun is ~860,000 miles across, all I can think is, DAMN.