A Large Tsunami Shock Wave on the Sun (APOD 13 Dec 2006)

mrldisle · Post by **mrldisle** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 5:55 pm

Is the caption under this picture wrong?
It states, "The solar tsunami spread at nearly one million kilometers per hour, and circled the entire Sun in a matter of minutes."
The circumference of the sun is 4,366,813 kilometers, it would take the shockwave more than a couple of minutes to circle.

BMAONE23 · Post by **BMAONE23** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:05 pm

WELL,
I guess you could say that it circled the sun in a matter of 130 minutes (give or take).

kovil · Post by **kovil** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:14 pm

Hmmm, my math tells me it took 4.366 divided by 2 = 2.18 hours, ohh, that is 132 minutes ! My intuitional antennas were rising at the 'matter of minutes' comment, but more than that; they raised considerably at;

What could cause such a terrific explosion ! and resultant shock wave?

Perhaps the sun is not as stable as I imagine.

Did something impact into the surface of the sun and cause the disturbance?

Say a one mile in diameter iron meteorite or asteroid?
Small enough that we wouldn't sensor it, but large enough to make a super-explosion when it vaporized.

Or is that not likely, and it was a magnetic event of some sort in its genesis?

Galactic Groove · Post by **Galactic Groove** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 7:46 pm

I wish they would describe it in better terms than just as a "tsunami." I'm left wondering if it was some sort of blast or concussive force or if it just "looks" like a tsunami but was just a ripple of energy or plasma or whatever. If it was a blast that had force then I would have expected to see matter flung out away from the body, especially considering the size of the wave we are seeing. How many billion trillion megatons do you think that would be??? Craziness

chinajon · Post by **chinajon** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 2:12 am

I wonder what the mechanism of the tsunami is and what the speed can tell us about the properties of the material involved. Is it a pressure wave or an electromagnetic wave?

Are we seeing the expanding edge of a semi-spherical phenomenon, i.e. is the wave also traveling down into the Sun? Are such waves from the far side detected on this side? When a wave circles a sphere it comes to a point on the opposite side at which the amplitude should increase as the wave forms meet and join. Can these be detected?

Sorry, I posted before I saw the discussion re the tsunami appear... It is fine with me to move this post over to that one.

kovil · Post by **kovil** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 3:30 am

Having never heard of anything like this before, I am wondering if anything like this has ever been observed before.

Why does the picture jump around, almost like the shock wave disturbed the camera !

Maxx X ; Worlds Biggest Explosions , tv docu-drama,
the one of the chemical plant in Texas (?)
When it had a fire and huge explosion,
filmed from an airplane
the shock wave traveled across the ground so fast
and you could see the density distortion of light
within pressure wave, spooky to see !!

such power

makc · Post by **makc** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 1:32 pm

Merged. Are you people trying to piss me off? Just because I don't visit here often does not mean rule #5 is cancelled

P.S.: There's a picture problem. The one in the post is .8MB, the one it links to is .2MB

iamlucky13 · Post by **iamlucky13** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:50 pm

Kovil...The wobble is pretty subtle, but after watching the image a few times, I did notice the sun gets ever so slightly closer and farther away from the image edge from frame to frame. I'm guessing the image jumps around due to minor adjustments of the telescope that imaged it. Remember it is tracking the sun accross the sky at approximately 0.25° per minute. It's also possible that the telescope simply isn't very well isolated from ground vibrations.

About the explosion viewed from the airplane: What generally happens in that case is the pressure wave generally preceeds the hot gas fireball by some amount. The increase in pressure can actually cause water vapor in the air to condense into a uniform fog as the wave recedes. I'm not sure if the case you're referring to the fog actually acted as a lens (seems unlikely) or merely made it hazy for a fraction of a second, giving the appearance of distorted light. I've seen this effect quite a few times from videos of bombs exploding, especially the Daisy Cutters from Vietnam.

starving actor · Post by **starving actor** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:35 am

Wait... I am lost...one of you says 130 minutes for the wave to traverse the sun....
a million kilometers per hour goes 4 million kilometers in how long? a matter of minutes (4. whatever minutes) I thought.... But i am just an amatuer astronomer, well out of practice. Peace

starving actor · Post by **starving actor** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 12:39 am

Ooops. I woke up. 4 hours. Sorry. 240 + minutes.

cpergiel · Post by **cpergiel** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 1:26 am

4 million km in circumfrence. 2 hours to go half way around.

I want to replay this clip, but the only way I have is to close the window, and then open a new one. It would be nice if there was a control on the page that would let you do this. Since there isn't, does anyone know a program that would do this?

ccp

BMAONE23 · Post by **BMAONE23** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 2:50 am

cpergiel is correct. the reason that it takes 132 minutes to travel is that it is traveling in all directions simultaneously.

ckam · Post by **ckam** » Fri Dec 15, 2006 9:48 am

cpergiel wrote:I want to replay this clip, but the only way I have is to close the window, and then open a new one. It would be nice if there was a control on the page that would let you do this. Since there isn't, does anyone know a program that would do this?

That's no clip, that's a GIF file. Here, I've tried to re-save it as to loop a bit more smoothly (click on thumbnail):

Starship Asterisk*

A Large Tsunami Shock Wave on the Sun (APOD 13 Dec 2006)

A Large Tsunami Shock Wave on the Sun (APOD 13 Dec 2006)

Lost on the surface of the Sun, one location good as another

The Sun's Tsunami

power on an unimaginable scale !

tsunami on the sun

solar tsunami