Sun brings in May Day with spectacular solar eruption

By Tariq Malik, SPACE.com

The sun celebrated May Day with a spectacular solar eruption Wednesday, unleashing a colossal wave of super-hot plasma captured on camera by a NASA spacecraft.

The solar eruption occurred over a 2.5-hour period May 1 and appeared as a "gigantic rolling wave" on the sun in a video recorded by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, agency officials said in an image description. The solar eruption is what scientists call a coronal mass ejection (CME) — a type of sun storm that can fire off billions of tons of solar material at more than a million miles per hour, they added.

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When aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful CME events can pose a risk to satellites and astronauts in orbit, as well as interfere with communications and navigation networks. They can even damage ground-based power infrastructure.

But the May Day solar eruption occurred on the side of the sun and was not aimed at Earth, NASA officials said. It produced a dazzlingly bright wave of plasma that expanded from the sun's surface and then erupted from the sun's side, or limb, into open space.

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The sun is currently in an active phase of its 11-year solar weather cycle and is expected to reach its peak activity this year.

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory is one of several sun-watching spacecraft that keeps constant watch on Earth's nearest star to track solar weather patterns and storm events. The $850 million SDO mission launched in 2010 and records constant high-definition views of the sun in several different wavelengths, including the extreme ultraviolet range of the light spectrum used to make the video of the May 1 solar eruption.

Email Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com or follow him @tariqjmalik and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on SPACE.com. 

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