Giant Sun Twister (1 Viewer)

[Tapxe]

It's a large file, but pretty amazing.

Earlier today (Oct. 28th) a twisted filament of magnetism on the sun suddenly untwisted. The result was a spectacular eruption recorded in full-disk detail by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Click on the image to set the scene in motion:

Movie formats: 8 MB gif, 3 MB gif, 1.7 MB iPad, 0.7 MB iPhone​

At its peak, the twister--or rather, untwister--towered more than 350,000 km above the stellar surface. It appears to have hurled a fragment of itself into space, but not toward Earth; the blast was not geoeffective.​

Now that the filament has relaxed, it is unlikely to erupt again. The next blast is more likely to come from big sunspot 1117, which NOAA forecasters say could produce an M-class solar flare. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.​

 

[primadox]

This stuff is so cool. What an incredible picture!

 

[bleedblk&gld]

Allsome!!!

 

[Tapxe]

Just did the math. That twister would wrap around the earth approximately 27.5 times. We are so small in relation to what is out there.