Meaning of Solar Tsunami.

Earth will be hit by a 'solar tsunami’ after the huge explosions on the surface of the sun. These eruptions occur when immense magnetic structures in the solar atmosphere lose their stability and can no longer be held down by the Sun's huge gravitational pull. Just like a coiled spring suddenly being released, they erupt into space, which could trigger a huge "coronal mass ejection" in which huge amounts of super-hot plasma were spurted towards the earth, which then sent a “solar tsunami” racing 93 million miles across space. Fortunately, the earth's magnetic field protects us from the blast of radiation like this, which is normally expected to wipe out much of the human race. The deadly solar plasma is likely to stream down the planetary field lines towards the poles, crashing into oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere and so lighting them up to form aurora. The atoms will light up and glow in different colors – greens, reds, violets and yellows – and we will see it as the aurora borealis, or northern nights, in the northern hemisphere, and the aurora australis, or southern lights, in the southern hemisphere. Scientists warned that a really big solar eruption could destroy satellites and wreck power and communications grids around the globe. The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionization of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Long term the effects are not easy to categorize but scientists believe these include highly disturbed weather patterns with a greatly increased risk of earthquakes and volcanic eruption in vulnerable locations.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Solar Tsunami: Space Storm Headed Toward Earth (nowpublic.com)
• Solar Blast To Hit Earth Tonight - Could Disrupt Satellite Services (lockergnome.com)
• Solar flares, coronal mass ejections and aurora borealis in pictures (telegraph.co.uk)