Stunning 3D Imaging Records Solar Storm Engulfing Earth -
New data processing techniques, coupled with a pair NASA spacecraft has allowed scientists to see the awesome power of the sun in dramatic detail as it recorded a massive solar storm engulfing Earth.
New data processing techniques, coupled with a pair NASA spacecraft has allowed scientists to see the awesome power of the sun in dramatic detail as it recorded a massive solar storm engulfing Earth.
Using the techniques, NASA was able to produce a video, for the first time on Thursday, showing the effects a Coronal Mass Ejection has on the planet as it hurtles around Earth at 3 million miles per hour.
"The movie sent chills down my spine," says Craig DeForest of the Southwest Researcher Institute in Boulder, Colorado. "It shows a CME swelling into an enormous wall of plasma and then washing over the tiny blue speck of Earth where we live. I felt very small."
CMEs are billion-ton clouds of solar plasma launched by the same explosions that spark solar flares. The effect on earth can range from beautiful auroras, to radiation storms, and in extreme cases power outages.
Tracking these clouds and predicting their arrival is an important part of space weather forecasting.
The new insight is coming from NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, launched in 2006. The duo comprises a key fleet that gives NASA insight into solar activities, and aids predictions.
When the storm occurred, STEREO-A was more than 65 million miles from Earth, giving it the "big picture" view other spacecraft in Earth's orbit lack, NASA said.
"We have seen CMEs before, but never quite like this," says Lika Guhathakurta, program scientist for the STEREO mission at NASA headquarters. "STEREO-A has given us a new view of solar storms."
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