Erupting in incredible whorls of fire, this is the fantastic first image of the sun in the middle of a solar storm.
An ultraviolet camera was able to capture the intergalactic display - which sparked incredible skies around the world this week - in all its glory.
The solar ‘tsunami’, which sent waves of supercharged gas hurtling 93million miles towards the Earth, prompted mesmerizing displays of the Northern Lights.
The signals of GPS satellites could be used to monitor tsunamis as they brush away the ocean. In the most detailed study to date of the effect, scientists have shown that even though open ocean tsunami waves are only a few centimetres high, they are great enough to create atmospheric vibrations extending all the way to the ionosphere, 300 kilometres up in the atmosphere. The finding, the researchers hope, could hugely improve tsunami early-warning systems.
In a study published online on 1 September in Geophysical Research Letters, a team of French geophysicists was able to use these ionospheric effects to trace the progress of three recent tsunamis, including the one activated by the 27 February earthquake in Chile, which had a magnitude of 8.8. The researchers showed that the strength of the ionospheric effects increased with the height of the wave.
The maximum height of that tsunami, which swept across the Pacific, was only 10 centimetres in mid-ocean, but low-lying tsunami waves can be more than 100 kilometres long. During a tsunami, hundreds of square kilometres of ocean rise and fall, nearly in unison. This produces a rhythmic movement in the atmosphere, generating a vertically propagating wave known as an internal gravity wave. The thinning air causes the wave to spread out vertically and the air movements become larger.
A tsunami in the Atlantic Ocean is a rare event. Part of the reason for this low incidence of tsunamis is the lack of subduction zones - the most common source of tsunami-causing earthquakes.
Although the incidence of Atlantic tsunamis is low the threat should be taken seriously because millions of people live in low-elevation locations around the rim of the Atlantic basin.
The travel time maps below show that once a tsunami is generated the response time for mass evacuation can be uncomfortably short.
A shallow earthquake measuring magnitude 5.2 near Porangahau in Southern Hawke’s Bay has rattled the region but does not appear to have caused any major damage.
Geonet says the quake struck 20 km south-east of Porangahau at 10:48am, and was at the shallow depth of 15km. The quake, close to the town of Dannevirke, was described by one resident as a “rock and a roll” but no damage has been reported so far.
“That’s all we need after being soaked and blown and now we’ve been shaken,” the resident told Hawke’s Bay Today. Geonet says the quake was felt widely across Hawke’s Bay and as far away as Wellington.
All Hazard Alert Broadcast System warning sirens will sound this day in communities along the North Olympic Peninsula coast. Sirens will probably sound at three sites in Port Townsend and in LaPush, Neah Bay, Clallam Bay, Lower Elwha, west Port Angeles, Dungeness and Diamond Point.
The sirens are proposed to be heard by people near the siren that are outside or on the beach. They are not intended for those indoors, but they may hear them as well. In an actual emergency, people should check for messages from the Emergency Broadcast System on their radios or televisions if possible.
The sirens will be pursued by a voice message declaring that the alarm was only a test. These sound tests are run to verify the system’s capabilities to send timely warning notification to the state’s coastal communities. The Jefferson County Department of Emergency Management urges citizens to purchase a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radio for use in emergencies.
The department will program the radio for free.
The organizers of a charity book appeal are inviting teenagers who have completed their exams to donate old GCSE textbooks. The Rotary Club of Stamford is requesting for GCSE course books and children’s books to help victims of the 2004 tsunami, which hit Sri Lanka on Boxing Day.
The books will be issued to children on the island. The club has previously provided desks and other supplies to renovate or rebuild schools there. Rotarian Tony Wakefield, 75, of Little Casterton Road, Stamford, collected some of the books from the offices of the Citizen’s sister paper, the Mercury, in Sheep Market, Stamford, where we are collecting contributions.
The books will be handed first to a rotary club in Sri Lanka before being distributed. Before the end of the school term, some schools in Stamford including Malcolm Sargent Primary and Stamford Queen Eleanor School donated books they no longer wanted. The club has already sent about 10 tons of books following appeals in 2008 and 2009. If schools have lots of GCSE books, the Mercury, can arrange to have them collected.
Call the news desk on 01780 750436.
