The article Dennis mentions has a couple of interesting paragraphs.

"The eruption is mostly burning hydrogen gas and solar particles which
     have been flung into space at around 100,000F, eight times the
     temperature at the core of the Earth, which is up to 13,000F - and hot
     enough to vapourise our planet should the Earth cross its path."

That sounds pretty scary.  But the next paragraph says:

"So much superheated hydrogen was involved in the eruption that
     although the gas is one of the lightest substances in the universe, it
     would have had a greater mass and weighed more than Mount
     Everest, our tallest peak. "

An Everest-sized mass is pretty large, but spread out over such a large volume
of space as this flare occupied (the length alone was over 240,000 miles),
wouldn't it be far too tenuous to pose any danger of "vapourising our planet,"
regardless of the temperature of the gas?  (Of course, if we were close enough
to the Sun come into physical contact with the flare during the eruption, I
suspect we'd be picking up enough radiation from the rest of the Sun to be
uncomfortably warm.  :-)

Wayne




Denys Beauchemin <[log in to unmask]> on 07/02/2002 04:32:34 PM

Please respond to [log in to unmask]

To:   [log in to unmask]
cc:    (bcc: Wayne Brown/Corporate/Altec)

Subject:  Re: [HP3000-L] Massive Solar Eruption....



This story talks about it here also.
http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/story.html?in_review_id=629398&in_r
eview_text_id=599697

Interestingly the story states:
"Scientists say the sun is experiencing a solar max, a period of strong
activity that happens about every 11 years and lasts for about three or four
years. "
I am sure it would have nothing to do with global warming.   :)


Denys

-----Original Message-----
From: HP-3000 Systems Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
Jerry Fochtman
Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 2:00 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Massive Solar Eruption....

In case anyone is unaware, yesterday Nasa recorded the largest
solar eruption, with a size of more then 30 times the diameter
of the Earth.  See:

http://soho.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/

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