Astronomer's monitor more huge solar filaments.

Today, amateur astronomers around the world are monitoring a pair of dark magnetic filaments on the sun.

The largest filament, which is curling over the sun's northeastern limb, stretches at least 50,000 km from end to end. SOHO has been monitoring the plasma-filled behemoth for more than three days

If it collapses and hits the stellar surface, the impact could produce a powerful Hyder flare.

spaceweather.com...

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/3ff3570273c0.gif[/atsimg]

So the sun has definitely awoken from its slumber and is putting on another show for many backyard astronomers and scientists alike. Amateur astronomers are being encouraged to monitor the filaments progress and to see if it collapses causing a Hyder flare or if it is ejected away from the sun.

reply to post by pazcat


Great find Pazcat.

50.000km across!! Wasn't that last one we had like 1.000.000km across?

Interesting to see if the CME's resulting from their colapse will have any influence here on earth.

Peace

edit: changed miles to kilometers

[edit on 8-3-2010 by operation mindcrime]

reply to post by operation mindcrime


Yeah, the last one stretched out more than one million kilometers long and lasted for quite some time, so this one is quite small in comparison.
They do always tend to produce some spectacular imagery though.
It will be interesting to see how this one acts.

reply to post by pazcat


Did the last one create a flare? I remember reading the thread on it but never saw what the final outcome was. Also, forgive the ignorant question here but if we were to see something severe on SOHO, how long until we would see the effects on earth? Or would it already have hit the earth by the time we see it on SOHO?

reply to post by Karlhungis


The last one kind of fizzled out in regards to the flare or it had rotated away from Earth by the time any might of occured. They don't always produce one it seems.
I am by no means an expert so i am sure someone can come along with a better response, but Hyder flares are not in general associated with geomagnetic storms the same way as a CME (coronal mass ejection)is. They don't produce the same energies, but i think there are exceptions to this.
Not to sure on the timing, i know they don't last too long when they happen.
As i said, i am sure someone who knows more can clear that up.

[edit on 8-3-2010 by pazcat]

reply to post by pazcat


Thanks. I understand that about the Hyder flares not being associated to the CME's (I only know this from reading the last thread). My question was more of a general one regarding what the lag is on the SOHO.

Again, thanks for responding.

I remember reading an article on Spaceweather.com that talked about the possibility of the filament touching the sun, and creating another type of flare.

The sun is reminding me of a plasma-ball lately. Its like these filaments are looking to arc with one of the planets.

reply to post by Karlhungis


I believe the lag between the detection of CME's & any effects being observed on earth are 2-3 days...

I recall reading the solar forecast at IPS Space Weather a day or two ago when a CME was detected & it was suggested this would affect earth on the 8th or 9th of march...

Edit - spelling

[edit on 8-3-2010 by Retrovertigo]

reply to post by Karlhungis



I'm guessing that if some CME's can get here within 30 minutes which is pretty quick you would have to consider that might be all the time before it arrives although it would be rare for that to happen.
Really though, I'm not sure.

. Originally it was thought that astronauts would have two hours time to get into shelter, but based on the January 20, 2005 event, they may have as little as 15 minutes to do so. Energy in the form of hard x-rays are considered dangerous to spacecraft and are generally the result of large plasma ejection in the upper chromosphere.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by pazcat


The largest known CME, which occurred in 1859 (cheap plug) took 18 hours to reach earth.

Should add that since this is a different kind of flare, it probably has different characteristics than your typical flare.

Not a lot of info about Hyder Flares either it seems...



[edit on 8/3/10 by Chadwickus]

reply to post by Chadwickus


lol, cheap plug

Anyway your right though, normally a flare takes 2 to 3 days to travel to Earth although it seems there has been instances of protons making their way much faster than that. And given that there is no great amount of info on Hyder Flares i guess you can say it is possible the effects could be on us that soon as well although are more likely to take the longer amount of time.

In a way it would be good if one was to happen and could be measured and then maybe some of these questions could be answered. However no to events would be the same.

Oh and for Karl, this is when the last huge filament erupted

[edit on 8-3-2010 by pazcat]

Hi possibly connected - saw this on GLP - what do you make of these please?

solar.nro.nao.ac.jp...

and

solar.nro.nao.ac.jp...

Looks to me like someones superimposed images of the glass of water from Jurrasic park on top of the sun..

Thanks

B

PS. The chap on GLP suggested that there will be a big earthquake (7.5) in the next 2 days because of this, although at the present frequency of earthquakes that seems to be a fairly safe bet at the moment

reply to post by badBERTHA


I have no idea what that is supposed to represent but it sure looks cool. I wonder if that is a common occurrence on the sun or if it is unusual?

reply to post by badBERTHA


Not sure either, are they supposed to be the shock waves from recent eruptions?

Here is a soho gif and you watch till the end there are a couple of eruptions leading up to and on the 7th. The one on the top left at the end may be related to the filament.

As for the sun and earthquakes i have no idea. I know many people do follow that theory though.

reply to post by pazcat


Here is what they say about that eruption on the soho website.

sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...

STEREO (Ahead) watched as a strong coronal mass ejection (CME) and an eruptive prominence rose up and stretched way out above the Sun's surface (Feb. 28, 2010). The composite image and movie show the action in both extreme UV wavelength (orange Sun) near and just above the solar surface overlaid on the frames from STEREO COR1 coronagraph that shows the material as it rises out into the corona. The video clip shows about 8 hours of activity. This is one of the brightest and most substantial CMEs we have seen in several years. And the presence of such bright prominence material in COR1 is very rare and has only been seen twice before.

Scary Stuff Folks! Anyone seen the movie 'Knowing' with Nic Cage?

www.imdb.com...

The gist of it is that giant solar flare steralises the earth. I wonder how possible that is?

reply to post by wayaboveitall


Well, if you go back up the page to Chadwickus's post he has a link on the 1859 solar storm, the largest one ever known. And considering that did not sterilize anybody, coupled with the probability that prior to solar record keeping there have been more large and possibly larger events than that and nobody has been sterilized. I do not think it something to concern yourself with.

With our current infrastructure there are more real world issues we would face with power and communications issues.
And it seems unless the Hyder Flare directly relates to a CME then there is really not to much to be concerned about either.

So, is it possible that we can expect more earth shaking than usual once again?
After all those events around the world, the earthquakes isssue is starting to get me some concern...

hey ya'll, just my 2 cents worth but quite frankly i found it all very coincidental that the last filament which i believe spaceweather and others said that they couldnt track for whatever reason, but gave the estimate of if it was heading in the direction of earth would arrive around the 26/27th feb, then suprise suprise the chile and ryukyu islands earquakes hit, with quite some subsurface activity since then up to now.
Now i have to state here that i am no world class astronomer or physicist or anything in between but i do have one hell of a thing called common sense, and considering the facts we do know about the sun and its impact on everything in the solar system on every kind of level, its not too hard to see that if more effects on earth are seen after these kinds of events then they are surely linked in ways we dont comprehend at the moment, put it this way, i am not religious but personally if god himself wanted to get a msg across then i do believe that the sun would be the link between us and him. keep you eyes open ppl and see if there is a correlation.
peace

reply to post by pazcat


The last one didn't just fizled out, it collapsed, as they do, and it created 1-3 CMEs which were to reach Earth on the 27th or 28th, which was when the Chile earthwuaked occurred.

Since these two are smaller they might create smaller CMEs, but still I think they would cause at least some increase seismic activity somewhere in the northern hemisphere.