ZOT!!!!

MPEG of what happens when an enormous coronal mass ejection comes to play, as seen from SOHO at the L1 point about a million and a half kilometers in toward the Sun.

ZOT, cont'd.

The orbiting solar telescope TRACE got a fantastic close-up movie of the "megaflare". TRACE and SOHO's degree of public transparency is great, though I wish these sites followed the blogger's convention of providing an easy persistent linking method for breaking items.

(When I say "close-up" I should probably say "telephoto". Nevertheless, the charged particles from the Sun are pretty intensely interfering with the satellite, causing all those specks that are flying around. I've never seen it that heavy.)

(no subject)

Mommy, why does Santa live at /dev/null?