Sunny Storm
Sun's rare double whammy
This still from SDO caught the action in freeze-frame splendor when the Sun popped off two events at once (Jan. 28, 2011)
The sun unleashed two powerful solar eruptions on Jan. 28 in a spectacular double blast caught on camera by a NASA spacecraft. The twin solar storms occurred in concert and marked an impressive start for the 2011 space weatherseason. A video recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the two sun storms erupting from opposite sides of the star. Neither of the events posed a space weather threat to Earth or its satellites, NASA officials said. A still image released by NASA shows a filament a long magnetic tendril of super-hot plasma become unstable on the sun's left side (as seen by the SDO spacecraft). As the tendril snapped, it burst into a major solar eruption. At the same time, a major event occurred on the other side of the sun. A powerful M-1 class flare blasted into space from the right side of the sun, along with a massive explosion of charged solar particles which scientists call a coronal mass ejections. Scientists measure solar flares according to a class system that includes three tiers. Source: Space.com
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