Tsunami On The Sun
This is freakin' cool. Over at Space.com I bumped into this really neato peachy keen animation of a solar flare generated tsunami on the sun.
It's wicked.
Article excerpt below the fold.
From the article -
A major flare on the Sun earlier this week generated what scientists are calling a solar tsunami.
The tsunami-like shock wave, formally called a Moreton wave, rolled across the hot surface, destroying two visible filaments of cool gas on opposite sides of the visible face of the Sun.
Astronomers using a prototype of a new solar telescope in New Mexico recorded the action.
"These large scale 'blast' waves occur infrequently, however, are very powerful," said K. S. Balasubramaniam of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Sunspot, NM, "They quickly propagate in a matter of minutes covering the whole Sun, sweeping away filamentary material."
