Last December, a colossal wave swept across the entire solar surface within minutes, bulldozing everything in its path. The rare tsunami-like shockwave formed on the heels of a major flare that erupted from an Earth-size sunspot 15 minutes earlier. Though that storm didn't have a major impact on Earth, we aren't always so lucky.

Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA via Space.com

Astronomers and astrophysicists have their knickers in a twist over a cosmic double helix hanging out near the galactic center of the Milky Way. The Double Helix Nebula, which was detected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, is 80 light-years long and sits about 300 light-years from a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Scientists think that twisting magnetic-field lines from the galactic center have caused the nebula to fold on itself into its distinctive shape. —Martha Harbison

Link via Space.com

Dept.: Gray Matter
Element: Magnetite
Project: Collecting, purifying magnetite; making magnetic field lines
Cost: Free
Time: 30 minutes
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