NASA's Parker Probe Flew Through a Massive Solar Eruption and Caught it all on Camera
cmdrklarg writes:
NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew right through a massive solar eruption and caught the whole thing on camera. It's the first up-close footage ever captured of a solar explosion like this.
The video, released by scientists at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, features an especially powerful coronal mass ejection that took place last year.
CMEs are large explosions of super-hot plasma that erupt from the Sun's atmosphere. They consist of charged particles that can trigger radio blackouts and cause other mayhem if they strike Earth.
NASA said that the CME that struck the Parker Solar Probe was "one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections ever recorded."
Lucky for those scientists currently studying the sun, NASA's Parker Solar Probe flew right through the CME and survived it, capturing the event on camera. (The eruption starts at around the 14-second mark in the clip below.)
[...] Also read that the CME was around the same size as the 1859 "Carrington Event".The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. [...] The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.
Woof!!
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