Incredible New Animation Shows The Ferocious Power of a Solar Flare (astroengine.com) 42
NASA and the National Science Foundation helped fund something amazing. Slashdot reader astroengine writes:
For the first time, scientists have created a computer model that can simulate the evolution of a solar flare, from thousands of miles below the photosphere to the eruption itself in the lower corona -- the sun's multimillion degree atmosphere. And the results are not only scientifically impressive, the visualization is gorgeous....
[W]ith increasingly-sophisticated solar observatories (such as NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory), we are getting an ever more detailed look at what's going on inside the sun's deep atmosphere and, with improvements of theoretical models and increases in computer processing power, simulations of the corona are looking more and more like the real thing... Rather than forcing their simulation to generate flares, they re-enacted the conditions of the sun that were observed and just let their simulation run to create its own flares. "Our model was able to capture the entire process, from the buildup of energy to emergence at the surface to rising into the corona, energizing the corona, and then getting to the point when the energy is released in a solar flare," said NCAR scientist Matthias Rempel in a statement. "This was a stand-alone simulation that was inspired by observed data. "
They're calling it "a three-dimensional radiative magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a solar flare," and Discover magazine breaks down the colors in the image -- for example, green shows the hottest plasma, with temperatures over 10 million K (or nearly 18 million F).
"A single flare can release the equivalent of millions of hydrogen bombs all going off at the same time."
[W]ith increasingly-sophisticated solar observatories (such as NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory), we are getting an ever more detailed look at what's going on inside the sun's deep atmosphere and, with improvements of theoretical models and increases in computer processing power, simulations of the corona are looking more and more like the real thing... Rather than forcing their simulation to generate flares, they re-enacted the conditions of the sun that were observed and just let their simulation run to create its own flares. "Our model was able to capture the entire process, from the buildup of energy to emergence at the surface to rising into the corona, energizing the corona, and then getting to the point when the energy is released in a solar flare," said NCAR scientist Matthias Rempel in a statement. "This was a stand-alone simulation that was inspired by observed data. "
They're calling it "a three-dimensional radiative magnetohydrodynamic simulation of a solar flare," and Discover magazine breaks down the colors in the image -- for example, green shows the hottest plasma, with temperatures over 10 million K (or nearly 18 million F).
"A single flare can release the equivalent of millions of hydrogen bombs all going off at the same time."
Animation? Watch the real deal (Score:5, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:1)
Meh.
Demo crews were making animations like that back in the 1990s, on a 66Mhz 486DX2 (with local bus graphics!).
Re: (Score:1)
My TRS-80 ASCII flares have yet to be beat.
Re: (Score:2)
Dancing Demon FTW!
Re: (Score:2)
Animation? Watch the real deal
Yeah, but it's a bit harder to "get your hands" on that one. Plus, get that close and it's likely to melt your camera -- unless you're on the dark side of the sun, of course.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Some more videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (may want to watch at 2x speed to see changes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (sun "rain" near middle, really cool)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (best stuff about 60% way thru)
Fantastic! (Score:3)
Who knew that computers could be used to model such complex and beautiful processes when they are not busy mining Bitcoin and playing vidya games.
The music (Score:2)
Can totally pass on the music. Sounds like a travelogue.
Find someone with a hydrogen alpha solar scope (Score:2)
Magnitudes (Score:2)