Solar Tsunami Inbound!

[jez29]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7923069/Nasa-scientists-braced-for-solar-tsunami-to-hit-earth.html

To cut a long story short, there's been a somewhat large explosion on the surface of the sun which has sent a wave of gas rushing towards the Earth! Fortunately, most of it will be deflected away and the worst we'll get is maybe a few broken satellites and some light shows at the north and south poles. There is an off-chance that its an omen for the whole 2012 thing, but at least it lets journalists break out sci-fi phrases like 'solar tsunami', 'space storm' and Earth's 'magnetic shield'.
So what is everyone's favourite thing about space? Personally for me its just mad stuff like this that sounds like its come from a comic. There's even a story linked on the page about a mega-storm that will hit once the sun reaches 'maximum power', which to me makes it sound like the Death Star.

EDIT - just so you know, 2012 = amusing nonsense. End of.

 

[Robyrt]

In the 70s, Storm of the X-Men could use her weather powers to sail on the solar wind. This was retconned because it makes no sense, but the hilarity remains.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

The fact that we don't know everything about it. It's still such a mystery and so beautiful and deadly.

 

[Avaholic03]

That's awesome. Just think of the scale of that explosion considering how much bigger the sun is compared to the Earth.

As for my favorite thing about space, I think Pulsars are pretty cool. Especially because we still don't know much about them.

 

[vallorn]

the earths magnetic field will protect us. (thank you little ball of spinning, molten Iron, Nickel and Cobalt at the earths core!)

 

[BonsaiK]

Gimme a break with this whole 2012 thing. If the Mayans knew a damn thing about anything at all, they would have ended their calender in 1697 when the Spanish handed to them their ass on a plate.

My favourite thing about space is that a fair bit of it exists between me and people that I don't happen to like very much. Oh you mean outer space... yeah that's pretty cool too I guess. Halley's Comet was pretty wild when it came close to Earth about 25 years ago.

 

[Burwood123]

It's only going to cause aurora, at the poles, not really worthy of the tsunami title it's getting. If it cuts out electricity then, yeah.. but it aint, so no worries.

My faveourite thing about space... the size, or pulsars, tiny highly magnetised, spinning corpse of a star, a teaspoon of it weighs millions of tons, because the star it used to be, condenses into a relatively tiny space, increasing it's density billion times over

 

[Kashim117]

Favourite thing about space: all the freakin aliens of course!

 

[vallorn]

The fact that we don't know everything about it. It's still such a mystery and so beautiful and deadly.

actually we do know why these happen. the magnetic fields of the sun are unstable and sometimes snap, releasing their energy as gigantic Coronal Mass Ejections or solar flares.

the more you know...

 

[vallorn]

It's only going to cause aurora, at the poles, not really worthy of the tsunami title it's getting. If it cuts out electricity then, yeah.. but it aint, so no worries.

My faveourite thing about space... the size, or pulsars, tiny highly magnetised, spinning corpse of a star, a teaspoon of it weighs millions of tons, because the star it used to be, condenses into a relatively tiny space, increasing it's density billion times over

Meh. Quasars are better. think Pulsars but the size of a galaxy. and with a SuperMassive Black hole vaporising matter into energy streams which are visable from THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE.

 

[jez29]

Gimme a break with this whole 2012 thing. If the Mayans knew a damn thing about anything at all, they would have ended their calender in 1697 when the Spanish handed to them their ass on a plate.

I find the whole thing quite funny to be honest, although given how behind the times I am its probably died out as something to mention on the interwebs.

 

[Haunted Serenity]

The fact that we don't know everything about it. It's still such a mystery and so beautiful and deadly.

actually we do know why these happen. the magnetic fields of the sun are unstable and sometimes snap, releasing their energy as gigantic Coronal Mass Ejections or solar flares.

the more you know...

number 1 awesome avatar. Number 2 I was saying what my favorite about space in a whole was as what the OP said. But thank you for explaining that particullar one because i didn't really know what happens but now i do. But un thank you because you made me forget 3 things. Where am i? whats my name? whats happening?

 

[Teh Ty]

I kind wish the world would have been affected, and a lot of people survived, so I could be like "When I was your age, there wasn;t a solar eclipse, or solar flare, and all that is weak, I went through a fucking solar TSUNAMI."
I can still do that, but it would be better if someone got really bad sunburn... or something. :/

 

[Quaxar]

Favourite thing about space: all the freakin aliens of course!

Shh, they'll hear you!

Spoiler

http://michaeljallen.org/603px-Crab_Nebula.jpg

Need I say more?

 

[Fursnake]

Gimme a break with this whole 2012 thing. If the Mayans knew a damn thing about anything at all, they would have ended their calender in 1697 when the Spanish handed to them their ass on a plate.

LMAO!

I am really skeptical about the Mayan's and their 2012 predictions, sure they were an advanced culture...for their time period. There's a whole lot they didn't know dick about, such as how to run a civilization without intentionally killing off your peeps in ritual sacrifices.

Space is pretty damn cool...and a bit frightening or intimidating when you start to think about the vastness and the randomness of it. There's as much chaos as there is order in the universe and the chaotic elements could end up being a super explosion in the sun or huge and fast errant object hurtling towards the Earth.

I saw a miniseries on TV years back called Hyperspace with Sam Neil as the host. There was one episode that described our solar system as moving up and down vertically within the galaxy as it rotates around and every many thousands upon thousands of years (can't remember the figure) this yo-yo path combined with the rotation of the galaxy puts the Earth right in the path of a very large asteroid field or something like that. And then they go on to say some shit about how we could be headed into the field in years to come. I think the episode was called "Staying Alive" or something similar. I really gotta pick that series up on DVD and watch it again, it was pretty good.

http://www.thetvdb.com/?tab=season&seriesid=78997&seasonid=15941&lid=7

 

[Tortoiseloz]

7 turkeys!!
Just needed to get that out, what I like is that we give awesome names to stuff that doesn't do much (I.e this solar tsunami I mean really the way it's described it sounds like in water that would be the size of a computer) or something dramatic like "The Andromeda galaxy is speeding towards us at 20000000miles per second!" "AAAHH" "Don't worry, considering the size of the universe it will take more than 50 times the age of the earth for it to come close!" its just like , oh? well that's kinda stupid!

 

[Sojoez]

Favorite part? I don't know. Everything I guess. There is just so many awesomeness out there that we haven't even fantasized about!
But what amazes me the most is the size. Its just.... So crazy big! I've seen pictures about a star so big where our planet was just the size of a pixel! That star then got scaled down to a pixel as well as it was being dwarfed by another star. Amazing!



Also... The Golden Throne.

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

It's just so damn vast. Huge. Incomprehensibly massive. Hell, just one thing out there, like a quasar or a supernova, could be completely outside our realm of understanding just because of how BIG it is. How much energy is involved. How many times we'd die if we were caught in it. Being completely dwarfed, even by a so-called "dwarf star!"

Call me simple, but that's what I think is the most impressive thing about space.

 

[Echo136]

Favorite thing? Star Nurseries. When I first learned about them I thought they were the coolest thing ever.

http://stardate.org/images/gallery/iotw_20040210.jpg

 

[Dango]

My favorite thing about space is how we don't know anything about what's out there.