Solar Tsunamis to Kill Us All

April 4th, 2008

Images of a tsunami blasting its way through the sun’s lower atmosphere have been taken for the first time. Do they pose a danger to us? No…lol

Well maybe not. Who the heck knows? These videos were released recently that show the solar tsunamis have helped astronomers get an idea as to their speed. It is probably safe to say that your maternity clothing are still going to be used at least.

Astronomers think that solar tsunamis, initially discovered by the SOHO spacecraft in the late 1990s, are something like the tsunamis in Earth’s oceans. Like these monster ocean waves, solar tsunamis are the result of a release of energy that creates a pressure wave that propagates through some kind of medium. On Earth, that medium is ocean water, but on the sun, it is hot, roiling solar gases.

What causes these giant solar waves isn’t clear. Astronomers know they are associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which are like “a rope of gas and magnetic fields that gets accelerated away from the sun,” Gallagher explained.