Double whammy on the sun today. Great pic.

[snagglepuss]

John Roach says: A spectacular double eruption on the sun was captured today by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The eruptions happened nearly simultaneously on opposite sides of the solar disk, SpaceWeather.com reported. The plasma clouds produced by the event are expected to miss Earth, so there's no threat to us or to satellites orbiting the planet.

On the lower left in this image of the sun, a magnetic filament erupted, and on the upper right a departing sunspot produced the strongest solar flare of the year so far, an M1-class event. The double whammy may be more than a mere coincidence: Recent research suggests that solar activity is interconnected by magnetism over large distances, and that solar storms can go global.

For still more stunning views of the cosmos, check out the latest edition of Month in Space Pictures.



http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/28/5942494-double-whammy-on-the-sun

[FSogol]

1. Cool, thanks for posting. n/t

[shireen]

2. solar tantrum

in the midst of the solar minimum cycle. Interesting.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. Minimum was over a year ago

We're about a third of the way to the next maximum now:

http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml

[shireen]

4. that's fascinating!

And the predicted activity is about half of the previous cycle. Interesting ....

[hunter]

5. Oooops. Some star ship trying to do the slingshot time travel trick miscalculated.

Hit the sun.

Splat.



What was left of 'em went all the way through and was spit out on the other side as a plume of dark matter and plasma.

In Star Trek Universe we can explain ANYTHING!

[Ochsfan]

6. Actually, it sounds more like Red Dwarf

:hi:

[Duwamish]

7. Fantastic photo!

Thanks for posting.

[snagglepuss]

8. I don't think I've ever seen a picture of the Sun quite as good.

Welcome to DU :hi: