Category Archives: sun
Sun, Moon and Spots
Posted by J. Major
The Moon transits the Sun on Feb. 21, 2012. (Image courtesy NASA/SDO and the AIA team.)
The Moon snuck in front of the Sun this morning from the perspective of NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (Little SDO), sliding past the sunspots of active region 1422. For a sense of scale, those sunspots are easily several times larger than Earth!
And check out a video of the event below! (I don’t know about you but I think the Sun looks a little surprised…) o.o
A Growing Sunspot: AR1416
Posted by J. Major
Active region 1416 doubling in size over the past several days (SDO/HMI)
This animation, made from images taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, shows active region 1416 as it rotated into view over the past week, doubling in size as it approached the center of the Sun’s disk.
According to SpaceWeather.com’s Dr. Tony Phillips, AR1416 is magnetically charged in such a way as to be ready to release an M-class flare at any time. If this happens over the next couple of days, it will be aimed directly at Earth…
Posted in sun
Time For Some Stormy Solar Weather!
Posted by J. Major
Powerful M8.7-class flare from active region 1402 seen by SDO on Jan. 23, 2012.
Any lapse in solar activity we may have seen during this period of “solar maximum” came to an end this weekend with some very energetic flares and CMEs, including the one seen above: an M8.7-class flare spotted by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at 3:49 UT this morning.
This comes just 4 days after a strong CME sent a cloud of charged solar particles Earthward on Jan. 19, which impacted our magnetosphere on the afternoon of the 22nd, causing brilliant displays of aurorae around the northern latitudes. (See a gallery of aurora photos on Universe Today.)
Today’s flare has the potential of causing the largest solar storm experienced on Earth since 2005… in addition to more aurorae in the coming nights, some electromagnetic interference may occur.
Posted in sun
Comet Lovejoy’s Dazzling Death Dive
Posted by J. Major
SOHO image of comet "Lovejoy" streaking towards the Sun on Dec. 15. (ESA / SOHO)
The end is definitely near… for comet Lovejoy, at least. The bright sungrazing comet was discovered on December 2, 2011, by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy using a ground-based telescope. It was quickly seen that the comet was on a doomsday dive toward the Sun and will not likely survive its close pass of our home star during the next several hours.
UPDATE: Lovejoy Lives! The comet re-emerged from the other side of the Sun after passing behind it tonight… this is one tough little traveler! See its revival here.
Black Friday’s Solar Eclipse
Posted by J. Major
Annular solar eclipse observed by the Hinode spacecraft on Jan. 6, 2011. Credit: Hinode/XRT
While many in the U.S. will be recovering from Thanksgiving day meals and looking for ways to stretch their holiday shopping dollars at (hopefully local) retailers’ “Black Friday” sales, the face of the Sun will grow dark as the Moon casts its shadow over the Earth. But it won’t be visible to American shoppers – or very many people at all, actually… this eclipse will be staying in the southern skies above Antarctica!
Solar Nirvana
Posted by J. Major
The Sun in hydrogen-alpha on Nov. 6. © Alan Freidman.
Hot off the presses, here’s a stunning full-disc solar photo by the inimitable Alan Friedman, taken on November 6, 2011 from his location in Buffalo, NY. Absolutely gorgeous!
The enormous sunspot region AR 1339 can be seen just right of the center of the Sun. It’s nearly 17 times wider than Earth!
Hydrogen alpha (Ha) is a specific wavelength of light (656.28nm) emitted by hydrogen atoms. By filtering for just this wavelength of light, details of the Sun’s photosphere can be made out whereas otherwise they’d be lost in the glare of our home star.
Alan uses a special telescope and camera mount to capture his amazing images. See more photos – and order large-scale art prints of them – on his site AvertedImagination.com.
Image © Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Posted in sun
One “Big Blemish” – AR 1339
Posted by J. Major
Photo of Active Region 1339 by Alan Friedman. (All rights reserved.)
Another fantastic image by Alan Friedman, this shows the massive sunspot region AR 1339 as it appeared on November 5, 2011 while in the process of rotating into view – and aim! – of Earth.
Estimated at about 17 times the width of Earth, AR 1339 contains some gigantic sunspots capable of producing high-powered solar flares. Already it has released a solar flare reaching X1.9 at 20:27 UTC on Nov. 3.
Should it keep up this level of activity we may be seeing more extreme aurorae in the coming week or two as was witnessed in October!
Check out Alan’s blog for more images, and read more about AR 1339 on Universe Today here.
Image © Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Posted in sun
A Tall Tale of a Prominent Figure
Posted by J. Major
An exceptionally tall prominence on the Sun. © Alan Freidman.
Taken on July 29, 2010, this hydrogen-alpha-light photo by Alan Friedman shows a delicate, wispy solar prominence stretching more than 200,000 miles from the Sun’s limb… nearly as far as the distance from Earth to the Moon!
This photo was taken with Alan’s backyard telescope from his location in Buffalo, NY. Many of his solar photos have been featured on prominent (no pun intended) astronomy and news websites. See more of Alan’s images on his blog here.
Credit: Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Can Comets Cause CMEs?
Posted by J. Major
First, watch this sequence:
What is it? It’s an animation made from images taken by ESA’s SOHO solar observatory showing a comet diving into the Sun on October 1, and then a large CME (coronal mass ejection) erupting immediately thereafter.
Now, typically science has said that there is no connection between comets impacting the Sun and CMEs, or any other major eruption event. Comets are just too small to cause something like that to occur. Right?
RIght?? READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY →
Category Archives: sun
A Splash of Sun
Posted by J. Major
A large solar flare erupted from the Sun on September 7, 2011 and resulted in a coronal mass ejection (CME) and impressive display of magnetic activity, seen here in a video made from data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA 304 imaging assembly.
Spanning the course of about three hours over the 7th and 8th of September, the video shows a release of solar material from Active Region 1289, a portion of which is flung out into space but some is caught up in the Sun’s magnetic field lines and arcs back down to strike the surface. This dramatic event spans many hundreds of thousands of miles!
This ejection of charged solar particles later impacted with Earth’s magnetosphere, creatingbright aurora across the upper latitudes around the world.
Credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA science team.
An X-rated Flare
Posted by J. Major
An X6.9 flare on the Sun's eastern limb on August 9, 2011.
At 8:11 a.m. UT (3:11 am EDT) this morning the Sun unleashed a huge solar flare. Rated an X6.9, it was the most powerful flare of the current solar cycle… so strong, in fact, that some high-frequency radio blackouts were experienced here on Earth shortly after. It was three times stronger than the X2.2 February 15 flare.
The image above shows the region where the flare took place, along the Sun’s eastern limb just north of its equator. The capture is from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory’s AIA 304 imaging assembly.
Solar Explosion!
Posted by J. Major
Can’t see the video below? Click here.
Early this morning – at around 2am EDT – the Sun’s southern hemisphere belched out a trulygigantic plume of material, insofar as I have never seen anything like it in any of the images or videos captured by SDO to date! This really is the definition of solar maximum!
“The Sun unleashed an M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare with a substantial coronal mass ejection (CME) on June 7 that is visually spectacular. The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface.”– SDO science team
The video above was made by recording screen video directly from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory site, after loading the high-res images from today onto the screen. The first half is the speed at which the video played on the site, the second is stepped frame-by-frame manually by me.
Massive coronal mass ejection on June 7, 2011. This image shows the size of the Earth to scale. NASA / SDO / J. Major.
It’s amazing to see all that solar material flung out into space to then fall back down onto the Sun, looking like nothing less than a giant splash! The Sun isn’t a liquid, but it sure seems like it when watching this!
Although it was initially thought that this mass ejection wouldn’t affect Earth, the National Weather Service has since issued a warning about increasing geomagnetic activity tomorrow:
A dramatic eruption from an otherwise unimpressive NOAA Region 1226 earlier today is expected to cause G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) levels of geomagnetic storm activity tomorrow, June 8, beginning around 1800 UTC with the passage of a fast CME. A prompt Solar Radiation Storm reached the S1 (minor) level soon after the impulsive R1 (minor) Radio Blackout at 0641 UTC. The Solar Radiation Storm includes a significant contribution of high energy (>100 MeV) protons, the first such occurrence of an event of that type since December 2006.
Incredible! Luckily it wasn’t pointed directly at Earth – we’ll likely be encountering the huge cloud of charged particles at a glancing angle. Still, we can expect some very pretty auroral activity over the next couple of nights in the upper latitudes.
You can read more about this in a Universe Today article by Nancy Atkinson.
Video / image credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.
Posted in sun
SDO: Year One
Posted by J. Major
Can’t see the video below? Click here.
One year ago today, on April 21, 2010, NASA held a First Light press conference where the first images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory were presented to the public! Now here we are one year later and the images and video we have enjoyed these past 12 months are, in a word, breathtaking. SDO has given us an entirely new look at the Sun and changed the way we think about our parent star…not to mention filled our scientific coffers with literally tons of new data!
The wonderful folks over at SDO have compiled the video above highlighting some of the best images captured by the orbiting observatory…check it out!
Some additional info from NASA:
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Large prominence seen by SDO on April 11
April 21, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) First Light press conference, where NASA revealed the first images taken by the spacecraft.
In the last year, the sun has gone from its quietest period in years to the activity marking the beginning of solar cycle 24. SDO has captured every moment with a level of detail never-before possible. The mission has returned unprecedented images of solar flares, eruptions of prominences, and the early stages of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). In this video are some of the most beautiful, interesting, and mesmerizing events seen by SDO during its first year.
In the order they appear in the video the events are:
1. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on March 30, 2010
2. Cusp Flow from AIA in 171 Angstroms on February 14, 2011
3. Prominence Eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 25, 2011
4. Cusp Flow from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 14, 2011
5. Merging Sunspots from HMI in Continuum on October 24-28, 2010
6. Prominence Eruption and active region from AIA in 304 Angstroms on April 30, 2010
7. Solar activity and plasma loops from AIA in 171 Angstroms on March 4-8, 2011
8. Flowing plasma from AIA in 304 Angstroms on April 19, 2010
9. Active regions from HMI in Magnetogram on March 10, 2011
10. Filament eruption from AIA in 304 Angstroms on December 6, 2010
11. CME start from AIA in 211 Angstroms on March 8, 2011
12. X2 flare from AIA in 304 Angstroms on February 15, 2011
Be sure to vote on your favorite SDO clip! Voting goes from April 21 until May 5.
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Thanks SDO! Here’s to many more years of amazing images of our Sun! 
Posted in sun
Happy SUN Day, April 17th!
Posted by J. Major
It’s Global Astronomy Month’s Sun Day – an astronomical appreciation of the beauty of our parent star!
In keeping with global astronomy month, it’s time to get out and enjoy another favorite astronomical target – the Sun! It’s a star that can be seen from both hemispheres and a great way to involve your friends, neighbors and family in the pleasure of observing. What’s more… there’s activity going on right now, too!
There’s lots of ways to observe the Sun safely on your own…read more on Universe Today: Sun Day, April 17th – Get Out And Enjoy!
Afternoon Delight
Posted by J. Major
Large prominence seen by SDO on April 11
I spotted this on the SDO site late this afternoon…it shows an eruption of plasma from the Sun’s photosphere that stretches out many tens of thousands of miles…the Earth could easily fit many times over beneath the looping structure! This image is from about 5pm EDT (21:59 UT), and shows the eastern limb of the Sun, just north of its equator.
Prominences like this are caused by superheated solar material flowing along magnetic channels that arc up from deep within the Sun. When these channels break, the plasma contained within them is flung out into space.
Check out a video of the prominence in action here on my YouTube channel.
Courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams. Edited by J. Major.
There Goes The Sun
Posted by J. Major
The Sun was briefly slashed in half diagonally when Earth’s atmosphere hid it from the view of NASA’s SDO spacecraft on April 1, 2011. (No foolin’!)
SDO is currently in an orbit that puts the Earth between it and the Sun momentarily each day. When this happens, SDO’s view is blocked completely for several minutes but sometimes the image it captures contains a look through our planet’s hazy limb as our planet passes into or out of the frame.
The blurriness is an effect of Earth’s upper atmosphere.
This alignment of SDO, Earth and the Sun won’t be happening for long…in fact we may have witnessed the last such “eclipse” of the season earlier today! A similar image, taken on March 29, was recently featured on a National Geographic Space Pictures This Week blog post.
See more images from SDO on the mission site here.
Image courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.
Sun Pass
Posted by J. Major
The ISS crosses the disk of the Sun. Click for full-size version. © Alan Friedman.
Astronomy hobbyist and solar photographer extraordinaire Alan Friedman captured a wonderful image of the International Space Station transiting the edge of the Sun’s disc during a Winter Star Party in Florida on March 1, 2011. Taken with a solar telescope that images the Sun in hydrogen alpha light, the image above clearly shows the ISS with solar panels outstretched – as well as the space shuttle Discovery docked in its lower center! Fantastic!
But this was no chance snapshot…precision timing and positioning were required. Alan explains:
“I was scheduled to give my talk 12:30-1:30 – the transit centerline was 69 minutes later, 20 miles to the north on Marathon.With help from Brian Shelton and Mark Beale, I finished my talk, jumped into the car with solar imaging gear and we got set up just in time to catch it. I underestimated the narrowness of this event. We were about 5000 feet south of the centerline in a good location… another 500 feet and we would have missed it entirely. Lucky day!”– Alan Friedman
Lucky, perhaps, but a less-skilled photographer might have missed the shot entirely! Don’t sell yourself short, Mr. Friedman.
The dark silhouette of Discovery is visible at the center of the ISS
To think…the ISS is 220 miles above the Earth, the Sun 93 million miles further. And here they are together in perfect focus. Talk about from here to infinity!
Alan’s images have been frequently featured on spaceweather.comas well as BadAstronomy.com, the Huffington Post, several installments of Astronomy Picture of the Day…and, of course, here on Lights in the Dark! (And lots more places too.) You can see another solar image by Alan taken during the Winter Star Party here.
Be sure to check out Alan’s astrophotography site AvertedImagination.com for more great images and fine art prints of his photos available to order!
Image © Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Posted in Spaceflight, sun
Detachable Prominence
Posted by J. Major
Image of a detached prominence on the Sun. © Alan Friedman.
Here’s the latest image of the Sun from photographer Alan Friedman, showing incredible surface detail as well as the remnants of a detached prominence that had erupted from active region 1166 on March 3, 2011. This image was taken during a Winter Star Party event in West Summerland Key, Florida.
“A close-up look at the Florida sun, captured during the Winter Star Party, showing active region 1166 and a tremendous detached prominence. I had to use my body as a windscreen to block the 30 knot winds from buffeting my 90mm Ha solar telescope.”– Alan Friedman
Alan’s fantastic solar images are taken with a specialized telescope that images the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light, providing a look at the intricate features of the Sun’s chromosphere…the layer just below the super-hot corona and covered with fast-moving fine filaments of plasma called spicules. His images have been featured on spaceweather.com as well asBadAstronomy.com, the Huffington Post, several installments of Astronomy Picture of the Day…and, of course, here on Lights in the Dark! (And lots more places too.) You can see the previous solar image from Alan taken in October 2010 here.
Check out Alan’s astrophotography site AvertedImagination.com for more great images and art prints!
Image © Alan Friedman. All rights reserved.
Posted in sun
