Updates Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Updates

[jinglesassy]

These pictures i think i will follow

 

[SiberianTiger]

Looks like a cannon ball heated red.

 

[Wally]

Well, it's heated alright, that's for sure...

 

[Orbinaut Pete]

Some more links:

NASA: "NASA's New Eye on the Sun Delivers Stunning First Images".

NASA: "First Light for the Solar Dynamics Observatory".

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgcyJxk017M"]YouTube- First Images: The Solar Dynamics Observatory, SDO[/nomedia]


[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v_ZLc3ApuY"]YouTube- Most Advanced Spacecraft Studies the Sun[/nomedia]

 

[tblaxland]

Pick of the Week for Feb. 25, 2011

Monster Prominence

|When a rather large-sized (M 3.6 class) flare occurred near the edge of the Sun, it blew out a gorgeous, waving mass of erupting plasma that swirled and twisted over a 90-minute period (Feb. 24, 2011). This event was captured in extreme ultraviolet light by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft . Some of the material blew out into space and other portions fell back to the surface.

Video (1.5 MB MP4). Other sizes and formats...

 

[Scruce]

Three energized active regions that were lined up latitudinally (along a North-South line) rotated into profile view at the Sun's edge and put on a good solar show (Oct. 21-23, 2011). They were observed in extreme ultraviolet light. The magnetic forces of the active regions were feverishly connecting and reconnecting the entire time. Towards the end of the clip, the middle region spurted off a burst of plasma and then the upper one erupted with a flare, followed by cascades of bright loops reorganizing themselves above it. SDO's high resolution images and fast cadence of images let us see a level of detail never before possible.

Credit: NASA SDO

 

[Scruce]

M8.7-class Solar Flare, Jan 23, 2012 (NASA SDO):

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ilr8p13A2o"]NASA SDO - M8.7-class Solar Flare, Jan 23, 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

The Chinese New Year certainly started with a bang this morning. At approx. 04:00 UT a strong and long duration M8.7-class solar flare exploded from Active Region 1402.

NASA SDO captured this event and thanks to ESA/NASA SOHO and NASA STEREO Behind spacecrafts, we have also learned of a very quick moving Coronal Mass Ejection. The CME is traveling at approx. 2,200 km per second and the Goddard Space Weather Lab predicts the arrival of this CME on earth to be January 24, 2012 at approx. 14:18 UT (+/- 7 hours).

It also shows that Mars will get hit too, several hours after Earth.

These kinds of events can cause problems for spacecrafts in geosynchronous, polar and other orbits passing could be affected by the cloud's arrival. In addition, strong geomagnetic storms are possible, so high-latitude sky watchers should be alert for Aurorae.

 

[sorindafabico]

For those living near the poles, there's a CME coming (video and graphs here):

CHANCE OF STORMS: Earth's magnetic field is about to receive a glancing blow from three CMEs observed leaving the Sun between Oct. 20th and 22nd. Forecast models suggest that the three clouds merged en route to Earth, and their combined impact could trigger a mild polar geomagnetic storm on Oct. 24-25. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

SOLAR FLARE! Solar activity is high. On October 24th at 00:30 UT, Earth-facing sunspot AR1877 erupted, producing a powerful M9-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the blast.

(sorry the necropost, this is the only SDO-related thread I found)

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Cloud Ripples W/Sun Dog During Rocket Launch

Taken by Robin Bozza on February 23, 2010 @ CCAFS in Florida

Details:
Cloud Ripples as seen on Australian radar, appear mysteriously and unexpectedly at Cape Canaveral as NASAs mission carrying the Solar Dynamics Observatory launches

http://spaceweathergallery.com/indi...d=115688&PHPSESSID=dg0ifmcg7apdco7remqr276bc4

 

[Soheil_Esy]

Plasma vortex on the surface of the sun

Sep 8, 2015

This isn't the first solar twister SDO has observed. Last year, for example, the spacecraft recorded video of an enormous tornado spinning off the sun. And in 2011, SDO watched as another tornado — this one about five times the size of Earth — gyrated at speeds of up to 186,000 mph (300,000 km/h).

For comparison, tornado wind speeds here on Earth top out at around 300 mph (480 km/h).


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l45O42-eUAk"]SDO: Complex Mass of Plasma - YouTube[/ame]
A small, but complex mass of plasma gyrated and spun about over the course of 40 hours above the surface of the Sun (Sept. 1-3, 2015). It was stretched and pulled back and forth by powerful magnetic forces but not ripped apart in this sequence. The temperature of the ionized iron particles observed in this extreme ultraviolet wavelength of light was about 5 million degrees Fahrenheit. SDO captures imagery in many wavelengths, each of which represents different temperatures of material, and each of which highlights different events on the sun. Each wavelength is typically colorized in a pre-assigned color. Wavelengths of 335 Angstroms, such as are represented in this picture, are colorized in blue.
http://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/potw/latest

Magnetic tornadoes as energy channels into the solar corona

Nature, 486, 505 - 508, June 28th, 2012

In our 2012 Nature article, we report the discovery of abundant 'magnetic tornadoes' above the surface of the Sun. Magnetic tornadoes resemble tornadoes on the Earth but have a magnetic skeleton and are hundreds to thousands times larger in diameter. One such observed tornado occupies the area equivalent of Europe or the USA.
We find that magnetic tornadoes have swirling speeds of many 10,000 km/hour. Magnetic tornadoes transport energy from the Sun's surface into its uppermost layer, the corona, where they contribute to the heating of the Sun's outer atmosphere. Consequently, magnetic tornadoes may well be the crucial missing piece of a long-standing puzzle in astrophysics: the heating of the outer solar and stellar atmospheres.

We estimate that there are as many as 11,000 of these swirling events above the Sun's surface at all times. The discovery has been made possible through state-of-the-art technology, namely the combination of extremely high resolution observations from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope located at La Palma [Canary Isl.] with data from the NASA's space-borne Solar Dynamics Observatory. With the help of state-of-the-art 3-D numerical simulations of the solar atmosphere, we unraveled the fascinating physics of this new and important phenomena.

This discovery has been published in the journal Nature on June 28th, 2012, and was featured on the cover page.


Importance of magnetic tornadoes: One would expect that the atmosphere of the Sun should become cooler with increasing distance from its surface. Remarkably, the opposite occurs and the temperature rises to over a million degrees. How the atmosphere is heated to these temperatures is a fundamental question of modern astrophysics, also referred to as coronal heating problem. Solving the heating problem is crucial for understanding our Sun, including the generation of the solar `wind' and its impact on the Earth's atmosphere (e.g. solar storms, Northern lights) and spacecraft in Earth's Orbit (e.g. satellite communication disruption). It is generally believed that large magnetic arcades that exist in the Sun's outer regions, which are anchored to the bubbling Sun surface, can transport outwards the energy required for heating. We have discovered an alternative but widespread way of transporting enough energy for atmospheric heating due to relentless twisting of the magnetic arcades at their footpoints. A manifestation of this twisting appears close to the Sun surface, which we observe in incredible detail (see Fig. 1), and describe as a `solar magnetic tornado'.

http://www.solartornado.info/

 

[Nicholas Kang]

NASA’s SDO Reveals How Magnetic Cage on the Sun Stopped Solar Eruption

A dramatic magnetic power struggle at the Sun’s surface lies at the heart of solar eruptions, new research using NASA data shows. The work highlights the role of the Sun’s magnetic landscape, or topology, in the development of solar eruptions that can trigger space weather events around Earth.

The scientists, led by Tahar Amari, an astrophysicist at the Center for Theoretical Physics at the École Polytechnique in Palaiseau Cedex, France, considered solar flares, which are intense bursts of radiation and light. Many strong solar flares are followed by a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a massive, bubble-shaped eruption of solar material and magnetic field, but some are not — what differentiates the two situations is not clearly understood.

Using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, the scientists examined an October 2014 Jupiter-sized sunspot group, an area of complex magnetic fields, often the site of solar activity. This was the biggest group in the past two solar cycles and a highly active region. Though conditions seemed ripe for an eruption, the region never produced a major CME on its journey across the Sun. It did, however, emit a powerful X-class flare, the most intense class of flares. What determines, the scientists wondered, whether a flare is associated with a CME?

On Oct. 24, 2014, NASA’s SDO observed an X-class solar flare erupt from a Jupiter-sized sunspot group. Credits: Tahar Amari et al./Center for Theoretical Physics/École Polytechnique/NASA Goddard/Joy Ng

The team of scientists included SDO’s observations of magnetic fields at the Sun’s surface in powerful models that calculate the magnetic field of the Sun’s corona, or upper atmosphere, and examined how it evolved in the time just before the flare. The model reveals a battle between two key magnetic structures: a twisted magnetic rope — known to be associated with the onset of CMEs — and a dense cage of magnetic fields overlying the rope.

The scientists found that this magnetic cage physically prevented a CME from erupting that day. Just hours before the flare, the sunspot’s natural rotation contorted the magnetic rope and it grew increasingly twisted and unstable, like a tightly coiled rubber band. But the rope never erupted from the surface: Their model demonstrates it didn’t have enough energy to break through the cage. It was, however, volatile enough that it lashed through part of the cage, triggering the strong solar flare.

By changing the conditions of the cage in their model, the scientists found that if the cage were weaker that day, a major CME would have erupted on Oct. 24, 2014. The group is interested in further developing their model to study how the conflict between the magnetic cage and rope plays out in other eruptions. Their findings are summarized in a paper published in Nature on Feb. 8, 2018.

“We were able to follow the evolution of an active region, predict how likely it was to erupt, and calculate the maximum amount of energy the eruption can release,” Amari said. “This is a practical method that could become important in space weather forecasting as computational capabilities increase.”

In this series of images, the magnetic rope, in blue, grows increasingly twisted and unstable. But it never erupts from the Sun’s surface: The model demonstrates the rope didn’t have enough energy to break through the magnetic cage, in yellow. Credits: Tahar Amari et al./Center for Theoretical Physics/École Polytechnique/NASA Goddard/Joy Ng

 

[Nicholas Kang]

This is actually a 3-probe news, combining SOHO, STEREO and SDO. But there are no SOHO and STEREO updates threads, so I posted it here.

Recreating Solar Eruption in 3D

Scientists have developed new models to see how shocks associated with coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, propagate from the Sun — an effort made possible only by combining data from three NASA satellites to produce a much more robust mapping of a CME than any one could do alone.

Much the way ships form bow waves as they move through water, CMEs set off interplanetary shocks when they erupt from the Sun at extreme speeds, propelling a wave of high-energy particles. These particles can spark space weather events around Earth, endangering spacecraft and astronauts.

Understanding a shock’s structure — particularly how it develops and accelerates — is key to predicting how it might disrupt near-Earth space. But without a vast array of sensors scattered through space, these things are impossible to measure directly. Instead, scientists rely upon models that use satellite observations of the CME to simulate the ensuing shock’s behavior.

Using data from three different satellites, scientists have developed new models that recreate, in 3-D, CMEs and shocks, separately. This movie illustrates the recreation of a CME and shock that erupted from the Sun on March 7, 2011. The pink lines show the CME structure and the yellow lines show the structure of the shock - a side effect of the CME that can spark space weather events around Earth. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/GMU/APL/Joy Ng

The scientists — Ryun-Young Kwon, a solar physicist at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, or APL, in Laurel, Maryland, and APL astrophysicist Angelos Vourlidas — pulled observations of two different eruptions from three spacecraft: ESA/NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO, and NASA’s twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, satellites. One CME erupted in March 2011 and the second, in February 2014.

The scientists fit the CME data to their models — one called the “croissant” model for the shape of nascent shocks, and the other the “ellipsoid” model for the shape of expanding shocks — to uncover the 3-D structure and trajectory of each CME and shock.

Each spacecraft’s observations alone weren’t sufficient to model the shocks. But with three sets of eyes on the eruption, each of them spaced nearly evenly around the Sun, the scientists could use their models to recreate a 3-D view. Their work confirmed long-held theoretical predictions of a strong shock near the CME nose and a weaker shock at the sides.

In time, shocks travel away from the Sun, and thanks to the 3-D information, the scientists could reconstruct their journey through space. The modeling helps scientists deduce important pieces of information for space weather forecasting — in this case, for the first time, the density of the plasma around the shock, in addition to the speed and strength of the energized particles. All of these factors are key to assessing the danger CMEs present to astronauts and spacecraft. Their results are summarized in a paper published in the Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate published on Feb. 13, 2018.

(You may download the youtube video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio.)

Enjoy!