296 The strange appearance of a very familiar object
The Sun
A very normal sight in our sky (but
don’t look at it with the ‘naked’ eye!), turns out to be anything but ‘normal’
when looked at closely … the Sun is a very violent celestial body and its activities have a direct impact on Earth.
On 31 Aug 2012, a giant prominence on the sun
erupted, sending out particles and a shock wave that traveled near Earth
(the 5th picture). This event may have been one of the causes of a third radiation
belt that appeared around Earth a few days later, a phenomenon that was
observed for the very first time by the newly-launched Van Allen Probes
(Wikipedia).
Many of these images are from Wired. I have no idea what the last picture is all about, but I like it ... it’s so very pretty.