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Radiation From Half A Million Mile ‘Solar Whip’ Hits Earth Today [VIDEO]
04 Sep 2012 by Jasmine Stone in Environment, Nature, Weather
This massive solar whip or filament is 800 000 kilometers long. That’s 20 times the circumference of the earth. Makes you feel small, doesn’t it. The gigantic solar filament collapse has been caught on a NASA observatory camera.
A “solar whip” or filament is caused when a red glowing loop of plasma erupts, releasing the plasma out in huge loops hundreds of thousands of miles into space. The image and video of the filament released by NASA covers August 6 to 8, 2012; the footage was shot in extreme ultraviolet light and compresses three hours into half a minute. Space is terrifyingly awesome.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration spaceweather prediction centre estimates that a cloud of radiation from the eruption will reach Earth today. The radiation cloud will create a minor to moderate geomagnetic storm, bringing the northern lights to parts of North America.
In even more technical terms, a solar filament, also called a solar prominence if it is observed against space, consists of hot ionised hydrogen and helium looping hundreds of thousands of kilometres from the sun’s surface into the relatively hotter corona. It can persist for months before ceasing to exist. The best part of it is that astrophysicists so far have no comprehensive theory as to how such structures are formed. It’s great being able to watch something that flummoxes minds greater than ones own.[Sources: RT, Hindustan Times]
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