solar tsunami

Solar Tsunami Headed Towards Earth(Aug 03 2010)

The Sun’s surface erupted early Sunday morning, blasting tons of plasma into interplanetary space directly towards the Earth.That wall of ionized atoms should hit the planet this night, say scientists, creating a geomagnetic storm and a spectacular light show and possibly threatening satellites in orbit.

Solar tsunamis were observed before with the SOHO spacecraft, but this is the 1st time they have been observed in 4 different wavelengths corresponding to 4 different temperatures, enabling the team to see how the wave moved through the different layers of the solar atmosphere.

This was possible because STEREO observes images at all 4 wavelengths at a much higher time cadence than SOHO.