Physics Buzz

A group of "Aurora Chasers" in Canada appear to have stumbled on an extraordinary new astrophysical phenomenon, and—in typical internet fashion—endowed it with an amusingly ordinary name. Don't let the unassuming moniker fool you, though: Steve is a mind-bogglingly powerful event, albeit one that is apparently more common than scientists expected.

Yesterday, the sun spewed an enormous bubble of magnetically charged plasma towards Earth. Based on observations from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and ESA/NASA's Solar Heliospheric Observatory, NASA reports that two coronal mass ejections erupted at 9:55am EST on January 23, 2013 and one shot towards earth at a speed of over one million miles per hour. The two coronal mass ejections erupting from the sun on Jan. 23, 2013. Movie credit: ESA/NASA misssion on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)