Watch the sun spin and its surface change over three years, in ~3 minutes. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/piuKlpJmjfg?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Prepare for evacuation. _____ 'Most powerful' solar storm rotating towards Earth, threatens damaging flares <iframe src ="http://video.news.com.au/embed/2384937414/X-Class-solar-flare?player=narrow" width="330" height="365" frameborder="0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" scrolling="no"><p><a href="http://video.news.com.au/2384937414/X-Class-solar-flare">VIDEO: X-Class solar flare</a></p></iframe> PUT on your tinfoil hat and turn your mobile off - a sizzling solar storm could be on its way. Space.com is reporting a "super-active" sun spot is rotating on a path that will give any new eruption a trajectory towards Earth. And it's just spat another giant stream of plasma out into space this morning. Our planet will be in the storm's sights by the weekend, the website reports. In one 24-hour period over the past weekend, the sun unleashed the three most powerful solar flares recorded so far this year. In the period between May 12 and 14, eight blasts were observed. On the flare scale, the strongest registered X3.2. This morning's flare - the fourth big one - registered X1.2. X-class flares are the most powerful solar storms, with M-class in the middle and C-class the weakest. The previous 24 hours had seen an X2.8 and X1.7 flare. The weekend's stream of charged particles and plasma was not directed at Earth, but did have noticeable side-effects. High-frequency radios were blacked out for more than an hour over the weekend, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center. If flares are directed at the Earth, it could posed a threat to satellites and communications infrastructure - as well as expose inhabitants of the International Space Station to a radiation storm. The weekend's flares were observed by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory which monitors the sun from Earth orbit. The sun's solar flare activity follows an 11-year cycle of activity and quiessence. The current active state is expected to peak later this year. link
The sun has been doing this for billions of years. Only difference is we get to see it in cool cameras now.
Sun Unleashes Its First X-Class Monster Flare of 2015 The sun unleashed its first super-powerful flare of the year on Wednesday, and the intense eruption was aimed directly at Earth, space weather experts say. The monster X-class solar flare, the strongest category of sun storms, originated from a sunspot known as Active Region 12297 and peaked at 12:22 p.m. ET. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured stunning video of the X2.2-class outburst as it erupted. AR12297 has fired off a number of medium-strength flares over the last few days. Wednesday's event ratcheted things up a notch, causing an hourlong blackout in high-frequency radio communications over wide areas, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. Solar flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, enormous clouds of superheated plasma that streak through space at millions of miles per hour. While the radiation from a flare reaches Earth in just minutes, it typically takes CMEs several days to get here. Powerful Earth-directed CMEs can cause geomagnetic storms that disrupt power grids and satellite navigation. It's not yet clear whether a CME is associated with Wednesday's event. However, the Space Weather Prediction Center already has issued a minor geomagnetic storm warning for Friday in anticipation of three earlier CMEs. link
Here's a really good lecture on the sun and how solar flares form among other interesting sun facts. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/roADQPlPm0k" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
I know you're joking, but Mars has a solid core - no liquid iron mantle to create a magnetosphere. Mars would be worse off than Earth in a direct hit. The planet provides essentially no protection. Same applies to Venus. You'd need to evacuate to Saturn or Jupiter if you needed more protection than the Earth's magnetic field could provide.
