NASA | First X-Class Solar Flares of 2013

On May 12-13 the sun erupted with an X1.7-class and an X2.8-class flare as well as two coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, off the upper left side of the sun. Solar material also danced and blew off the sun in what's called a prominence eruption, both in that spot and on the lower right side of the sun. This movie compiles imagery of this activity from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and from the ESA/NASA Solar Heliospheric Observatory.

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[fgrimley]

It's really not scary or frightening, it should be enlightening. It simply shows the power of system's primary star. How can one not fully appreciate what it gives us without seeing something like this video.

[ninianedamedulac]

Quelle Merveille!! Merci à la NASA de nous offrir de si splendides images!!

[SisGrim]

Awesome footage! Also who's the musician? Awesome too!!

[AristosG]

This is so incredible.

It's amazing how inspired one can feel after seeing something so massive be so beautiful.

[JoelHerzog]

It's so amazing the amount of force and power those flares make, and then they are literally sucked back into the sun due to the even more amazing gravitational force the sun has.

A typical flare the sun generates would be enough to eradicate all life on our planet. Kind of makes all our problems seem so insignificant.

[maximus_]

Found this on the NASA press release -> Music: "Long Range Cruise" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of the artist and BineMusic.

[ArnaudLB]

Merci, c'est magnifique, les mots manquent.

[Thornarg]

It would be cool to include a little graphical view from north of the ecliptic showing the locations of the planets and the direction that the shock and cme would be expected to travel.

[ramkrishnaghildiyal]

This is so amazing and frightening. The very thought that each flare covers 100 times the distance between earth and moon is scarry.

[Adoniram]

... and mean while I am eating my bowl of cereal.
Amazing.

[BeGi]

1. turn on captions
2. listen to the music!

[ShadowriverUB]

It's XRay flux scale measured in Watts/m-2, it's logaritmic scale (smilar as earthquake scales) and each class is 10 times powerful then last one and it each divded with numbers 1-9. When flares happens there xray burst and peak of that burst is scale of flare, for example sunspot 11748 which is on that video poped 4 X-flares, X1.7, X2.8, X3.2 and X1.3 and there was few M-flares between those. Google "Goes15 xray" and you will get live xray flux graph and you will see for yourself how it works ;]

[ShadowriverUB]

(cont)Also X is last one... but there can be more powerful, if it goes above X it will be X10.0, X20.0, X30.0 and so on, each of those are 10 times more powerful then last one same as other classes we simply dont change latter anymore. GOES15 salttelite (Which measures official flare scales) can measure to X20.0. Also fun fact, sun naturally stays at B7.0 sometiems goign even to C, so you will never see A and B flares :)

[hekokonache]

una muestra mas de lo pequeño que somos como raza humana .

[jeracci]

So does the flare trigger the ejection? I do not know much about this, but I could not help but notices that after the flare on the left seconds later there is what appears to be the opposite side ejection on the right. Thanks!

[Thresholdz]

someone needs to play some metroid music, fit so perfectly...

[AdanBlinBlinDJ]

How can I get videos like that on a DVD or bluray to watch it at home and relax?

[Arkansis]

Why does the camera flicker when there is a flare?

[utubelesst]

Wow did nasa actually doing something for people. I don't remember anything like this video before.

[Heimer_D]

What I find interesting and questionable is how most videos and pictures of CMEs seem to always be at the circular edge of the sun.