Coronal Mass Ejection of 10 billion tons of matter creates a "snowstorm" on SOHO satellite images. The vast cloud of gas -- which with a temperature of 1.8 million degrees fahrenheit is more powerful than a billion hydrogen bombs -- will hit our planet's atmosphere today. The giant fireball hurtling towards Earth threatens to bring chaos to mobile phone networks, power grids and aircraft communications.
Massive solar flare may wreak havoc here
An X 17.2 flare, the second largest flare observed by SOHO, was setting off a strong high energy proton event and a fast-moving Coronal Mass Ejection.
The "snow" in EIT and LASCO images is not just making it difficult to spot new CMEs, it is also making the satellite's on-board compression algorithm less efficient, their observations lag behind the schedule because images take longer to downlink, and their buffer fills up.
A solar flare is an explosion on the Sun that happens when energy stored in twisted magnetic fields (usually above sunspots) is suddenly released. Flares produce a burst of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays. Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms. There are 3 categories: X-class flares are the biggest; major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. Read about the classification of X-ray Solar Flares here. Also read: Seeing double: astronomers amazed at two huge sunspots. And Sun fireball causing mobile chaos.
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