Most people think that tsunamis just
happen in places that have ocean coasts. However, the sun has
tsunamis too; the video below shows solar tsunamis which are waves of
plasma (burning hydrogen and helium) flying through the Sun’s
atmosphere. These “tsunamis” (also known as Morteton Waves) are
actually triggered by coronal shock waves, “coronal “coming from
the Middle English for crown, so it is a curved shock wave radiating
over the surface of the Sun. These shock waves can move at speeds of
over 250km/sec or 155mi/sec.
Solar tsunamis can
create such intense electromagnetic waves that it can effect the
power grid system and the Aurora Borealis seen in the far Norther
Hemisphere, as well as, radio and cellular signals. These effects
would be felt in much the same way as solar flares.
In reality solar tsunamis have not been
much to worry about, in recent years we have been hit by quite a few
including one or two that were considered to be the strongest solar
tsunamis to ever hit the Earth, and in those cases the complications
were such that the general public would
not have even noticed the effects.
These particular tsunamis or
“prominences” as they are technically known caused such a massive
geomagnetic surge that it supercharged the Earth’s Auroras.