Violent explosions on sun and moon have been caught on camera, offering a rare glimpse for space lovers, Space.com report said.
Rare events like a large asteroid that crashed into the moon on September 11, 2013 and vivid flare unleashed by the sun on January 28 this year were recorded by the space telescopes.
Scientists had strategically positioned the telescopes like they never did before and recorded these dramatic events.
The video of explosion at the moon was captured by Jose Madiedo, who is a professor at the University of Huelva. According to Space.com, Madiedo operates two moon-watching telescopes, namely Moon Impacts Detection and Analysis System, in the south of Spain.
According to Space.com, the asteroid that struck the moon triggered the brightest explosion ever seen on its surface. The space rock hit at an amazing speed of 37,900 mph (61,000 km/h), gouging out a new crater roughly 131 feet (40 meters) wide in an ancient lava-filled lunar basin known as Mare Nubium. The scientists think the boulder behind the crash was about 880 lbs. (400 kg) and measured between 2 and 4.5 feet (0.6 and 1.4 meters) in diameter.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zCFDkj2JtyA
Solar flare was grabbed by NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) on January 28. It was its largest solar flare that has been recorded after its launch in the summer of 2013. The solar observation satellite observed the output of energy from the sun in spectrums that are invisible to the naked eye, particularly x-rays and light particles.
A solar flare is a large burst of x-ray and light energy coming from the sun that streams out into space. Scientists have been investigating about their cause for long but still unclear. However, they credit fluctuations in the magnetic field of the sun responsible for shaping and directing the flow of hot plasma and solar material that compose the star.
NASA in a statement said, “IRIS can’t look at the entire sun at the same time, so the team must always make decisions about what region might provide useful observations. On Jan. 28, scientists spotted a magnetically active region on the sun and focused IRIS on it.”
