The SOHO spacecraft has recorded the effect of all this rising energy. Its ultraviolet
sensors show a wavy pattern of gas on the sun's surface, along with the super-hot halo
of gas called the corona.
The white regions are places where the rising gas suddenly escapes.
Immense loops of ionized gas, ten times the diameter of Earth, rise and fall back. These
solar prominences are hot, about 60,000 degrees Celsius.
But there are times when the release of energy on the solar surface gets bottled up, by magnetic
fields generated by the sun's spinning turbulent core.
Using data from the sun's exterior, scientists have modeled these fields as they erupt all
around the sun's surface, twisting and looping.
Heat rising toward the surface follows these magnetic field lines, which can also stifle
the rising columns, forming relatively cool patches.
That's where sunspots form. Four centuries ago, Galileo Galilei was the first to argue
that these blotches were actually on the Sun's surface, though he suspected they were clouds.
Their nature remained unclear until 1908, when the astronomer George Ellery Hale demonstrated
the link between sunspots and intense magnetic fields.
Over the years, scientists have drawn their strange shapes in an effort to understand
them.
What they didn't see, until recently, was the heat and pressure building around them.
Using data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, SOHO, scientists are learning
to read undulations on the surface of the sun, the result of pressure waves ricocheting
through its volume.
Like the study of earthquakes on Earth, this field, called Heliosiesmology, is a window
on the movements of gas inside the sun. It's also generating predictions of flares and
sunspots, including those forming on the far side.
Detectors aboard the SOHO spacecraft have managed to catch the moment when the energy
capped by a sunspot is suddenly released.
A shock wave travels rapidly outward, like a solar tsunami, with enough force to circle
the star.
That signals the start of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a massive eruption of particles and
hot gas.
With a coronagraph to block out the bright light of the sun, you can see how violent
our sun can get.
If a CME is detected blasting out from behind this artificial eclipse, you know that satellites
and power systems on Earth are going to get hit hard, especially if it has been launched
in the direction of where Earth will be in its orbit in about 24 to 36 hours.
The sun sends a wave of energetic particles that will crash into Earth's magnetic field.
And as more and more of the ground around Earth gets carpeted with conductive metal,
the chances are that all that juice will "fry" something vital to humanity.