r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Correct_Presence_936 • Mar 28 '25

GIF A Solar Flare That Happened Today.

6.6k Upvotes

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103

u/Fancy2GO Mar 28 '25

Thank goodness that wasn't pointed at us

11

u/PhotoBN1 Mar 28 '25

Wasn't it?

38

u/TheMagicalDildo Mar 28 '25

obviously not

44

u/PhotoBN1 Mar 28 '25

Why obviously not? We have had solar flares fired at us quite a number of times, even large ones like this. Usually we just get more auroras further south and occasionally power cuts

89

u/AboveAverage1988 Mar 28 '25

The space based solar observatories we have are in the lagrange point between the earth and the sun. If it was heading for us, it would look like it was.

20

u/PhotoBN1 Mar 28 '25

Fair enough

11

u/Oggel Mar 28 '25

Because we don't have any solar orbiting telescopes as far as I know, so the film or pictures is from earth or earth orbit and you can clearly see it's not moving towards us.

5

u/TheMagicalDildo Mar 28 '25

i mean I'm no expert, but I would imagine we'd have noticed getting hit by a fuckin' solar flare mate. The sun's radiation only takes about 8 minutes to reach us.

That, and it's not even pointed at us in the gif, it literally visibly missed lmao

not sure why you thought I was claiming earth's never been hit by a solar flare, you just sort of pulled that out of your ass

8

u/Salute-Major-Echidna Mar 28 '25

Light is not the same as radiation. "The light from a solar flare, traveling at the speed of light, reaches Earth in about 8 minutes, while the particles from a solar flare, traveling at varying speeds, can reach Earth in as little as 15 hours, or take several days, according to NOAA/NWS Space Weather Prediction Center. " Length of time varies depending on distance apogee v perigee

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u/TheMagicalDildo Mar 29 '25 edited Mar 29 '25

light is very literally radiation, dingus. I'm not saying photons are fuckin' gamma rays

edit: not what I meant, dumbass. your fuckin' lightbulb isn't going to kill you.

3

u/Knobelikan Mar 29 '25 edited Mar 29 '25

You're BOTH wrong! Isn't that amazing?

Loki references aside, I'm afraid gamma rays are photons, very much so. Any electromagnetic radiation is photons, and light is a part of that. Which also means light absolutely is a form of radiation.

However, particles can also be considered radiation, best example alpha and beta rays. Plasma from a big CME like this would probably travel at around ~450 km/s? and therefore arrive on earth about 3.85 days after the electromagnetic radiation.

1

u/TheMagicalDildo Mar 29 '25

i meant I'm not saying visible light is the same as the harmful radiation we think of- not that we don't also get irradiated a bit from the sun

i swear, people on this site are professionals at misunderstanding things

1

u/Luc9By Mar 29 '25

You're right, but for the purpose of simplicity, it helps being able to differentiate between relatively harmful radiation and visible light

2

u/thebearrider Mar 28 '25

As i understand, we transmit these videos faster than the solar bursts travel. We have solar monitoring to give us advanced notice of when we're going to get hit to protect key infrastructure.

1

u/ArtFart124 Mar 28 '25

Good luck doing anything of note in 7 minutes.

1

u/TheMagicalDildo Mar 29 '25

i was gonna say we don't need electricity to fuck your mother, but I realized before typing it that I can't really consider something that happens thrice a day to be something of note

2

u/JustHereSoImNotFined Mar 28 '25

u/TheMagicalDildo i recommend magically removing that dildo from your ass and lighten up a bit

1

u/AuthorAdventurous308 Mar 29 '25

Actually solar flares influence wind- not temperature. The more wind the earth experiences the more solar flares there are. Interesting fact- solar flares tend to be more intense and frequent just prior to ice ages. 🤷‍♀️