NASA Spacecraft Tracks Storm Until The Sun Envelopes The Earth First

NASA spacecraft away from the sun has seen a storm destroys the planet for the first time.

STEREO-A was more than 65 million miles of our planet, gives it a "big picture" view of other spacecraft in orbit around the earth is missing.

Recordings of the event has intrigued scientists, who say it could lead to significant advances in space weather forecasting.

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Best seat in the house: STEREO-A was more than 65million miles from our planet, giving it a 'big picture' view other spacecraft orbiting Earth lack, when it tracked the solar storm from the sun to our planet

Craig DeForest, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, said: "The film has sent shivers down my spine.

"It shows a coronal mass ejection (CME) will be a huge swelling of the wall of the plasma and washing over the blue speck of land in which we live. I felt very small."

CMEs are billion tons of solar plasma clouds of explosions began at the same time that the spark of solar flares. When you sweep the planet, can cause the aurora, the radiation storms, and, in extreme cases of power outages.

Following these clouds and to predict their arrival is an important part of the weather in space.

Lika Guhathakurta, STEREO program scientist role, said: "We have seen CME, but never quite like this CD has given us a new vision of solar storms .."

The images show that when the CME first left the Sun, which was hollow, with walls of magnetism surrounding a cloud of low-density gas.

Long journey: STEREO-A tracks a coronal mass election from the sun to Earth

Across the ditch Sun and Earth, however, as amended. The snow plow MEC "through the solar wind, waste material to form a huge wall of plasma.

At the time the CME reaches Earth, its facade was collapsing under the weight into the accumulated gas.

STEREO-A is one of the two satellites launched in 2006 to observe solar activity from different points in space.

When CME first leave the sun, they are lightweight and easy to do. Visibility is reduced quickly, but as the clouds expand in a vacuum.

Goes far beyond the orbit of Venus typical CME, it is a billion times fainter than the surface of the moon, and more than a thousand times fainter than the Milky Way.

CME reaches the Earth are so tenuous as the vacuum itself, and therefore transparent.

Mr. DeForest said: "By taking these small clouds of confusion of stars and interplanetary dust was a great challenge."

In fact, it took nearly three years of your team to learn how.

Solar storm: Footage of the event has amazed scientists who say it could led to important advances in space weather forecasting

Images of the storm on Thursday was recorded in December 2008 and worked on it since.

Now that the technique was perfected, it can be used on a regular basis without a long delay.

Images are not only identifies the time of arrival of the CME, but also its mass. The brightness of the cloud, scientists can calculate the density of gas with impressive accuracy.

Their results in December 2008 the event has been agreed with the actual field measurements at a few percent. When this technique is used to storms coming, they will be able to assess its effects with greater confidence.



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