With all the nasty things going on here on planet Earth these days, the last thing we needed was news of a solar eruption. But what do you know, that’s exactly what we got this Friday, via an announcement by the European Space Agency (ESA). But at least there’s some silver lining to all of this.
According to ESA, the solar eruption occurred on February 15, and it extended millions of miles into space. It was something called a solar prominence eruption, the kind that, if headed this way, “can wreak havoc with our technology and everyday lives.”
Luckily for us all, the eruption apparently occurred on the side of the Sun that is facing away from Earth, and the coronal mass ejection is now moving away from our planet.
Such events happen on a constant basis with the Sun, and they are detected by observation hardware from close to the star, like the SOHO satellite, or by using occulters to block out the glare.
This week’s eruption was spotted with the Full Sun Imager device onboard the Solar Orbiter, while it was at a distance of 2.17 million miles (3.5 million km) from the hot surface.
This means scientists ended up with an image that shows the full solar disc and the massive eruption coming out of it. As per ESA, this is the “largest solar prominence eruption ever observed in a single image together with the full solar disc.”
The eruption is an important one, with not only the Orbiter and SOHO pointed at it, but also with the Parker Solar Probe and the BepiColombo keeping an eye out.
“While this event did not send a blast of deadly particles towards Earth, it is an important reminder of the unpredictable nature of the Sun and the importance of understanding and monitoring its behavior,” the space agency said in the statement.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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