7 June Solar Eruption
At about 7:00 this morning (UT), solar observers saw an awe-inspiring prominence eruption that beggars belief. Before I say anything, watch the video footage below:
Just… wow, just look at the scale of that thing! Consider that, if the Earth were placed against the surface of the Sun in this footage, It would be small enough to get lost amongst the detail. Consider that even though the material blasted up is thinner and less substantial than the vacuum inside a light bulb, it still weighs in at billions of tonnes. Consider that the plume is easily a million kilometers across and that the entire event lasted only three hours. Just try to wrap your mind around the fantastic speeds and energies involved.
We should be grateful that that thing wasn’t pointing at Earth when it went off! And we should perhaps be a little humbled by the thought that this wasn’t even a particularly powerful blast – it was visually spectacular, yet ranked a comfortable “average” as these things go. Crikey.