A spectacular double eruption on the sun was captured today by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The eruptions happened nearly simultaneously on opposite sides of the solar disk, SpaceWeather.com reported. The plasma clouds produced by the event are expected to miss Earth, so there's no threat to us or to satellites orbiting the planet.

On the lower left in this image of the sun, a magnetic filament erupted, and on the upper right a departing sunspot produced the strongest solar flare of the year so far, an M1-class event. The double whammy may be more than a mere coincidence: Recent research suggests that solar activity is interconnected by magnetism over large distances, and that solar storms can go global.

For still more stunning views of the cosmos, check out the latest edition of Month in Space Pictures.

John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).

So you think this week's East Coast snowstorm is a biggie? Get a load of the monster storm system that astronomers are seeing on Saturn. Some astronomers have suggested that this is shaping up as a "Great White Spot" — a rare occurrence on the ringed planet — and now the Cassini orbiter has gotten its first good look at the phenomenon.

"Just down on the ground today ... our cameras on Cassini have captured sight of a gigantic storm recently erupted in the northern hemisphere of Saturn," the Space Science Institute's Carolyn Porco, who leads Cassini's imaging team, wrote in an e-mail advisory. "This storm has been sighted by the amateurs in recent weeks, but Cassini was finally in a position to take a splendid series of pictures of it. And what a storm it is! ... It only goes to show: It pays to have a sophisticated observatory in orbit around Saturn."

Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley was among the first to catch sight of the storm, and shared a picture of it last week. Another accomplished amateur, Chris Go, sent in a picture from the Philippines. And still more pictures are coming in to UnmannedSpaceflight.com's Saturn forum.

In her report for Universe Today, Nancy Atkinson quoted Wesley as saying that this is the "brightest Saturn storm in decades."

"If you get a chance to see it visually, then take it," Wesley said in his forum post, "it may be one of the rare 'Great White Spot' outbreaks on Saturn. Personally, I think it's just jealous of its big brother for taking all the attention lately."

Wesley is referring to the storm activity on Jupiter, which he and Go have had a hand in documenting. Most recently, astronomers have been noting the reappearance of the giant planet's Southern Equatorial Belt, a stripe of clouds that faded from view several months earlier.

If this flare-up on Saturn really does qualify as a Great White Spot, that could add a fresh twist to a long-simmering mystery: Why and when do such storms arise? The "Spot" storms are thought to be caused by an dramatic upwelling of material from lower levels of Saturn's atmosphere, perhaps related to thermal instability. They can become so powerful that the spot stretches into a stripe, lengthening enough to encircle the planet.

The current thinking is that classic Great White Spots occur roughly every 27 to 30 Earth years, in sync with Saturn's seasonal cycle. The last major occurrence was recorded in 1990, although "Spot" phenomena have also been seen in 1994 and 2006.

Based on that schedule, some astronomer weren't expecting another classic GWS until 2016 or so. In the weeks to come, Saturn-watchers will be watching this mega-storm to see whether it turns into a great ... or a not-so-great ... white spot. You can follow along by checking in with the Cassini imaging team's website, NASA's Saturn Web portal, and UnmannedSpaceflight.com.

More about Saturn and storms:

• Saturn's hexagon, and other strange shapes
• Giant blizzard rages on Saturn
• Happy holidays from Saturn's moons
• How Jupiter changes its spots

This week's storm in the Middle East wreaked havoc with scores of archaeological sites along Israel's coast — but it also uncovered a treasure: a headless, armless statue of a woman in a toga and sandals, made of white marble.

The figure was found half-buried in the sand by a resident walking near the shore in the southern city of Ashkelon. In addition to the statue, experts identified pieces of a mosaic floor from what's thought to have been a Roman bathhouse. The artifacts are part of a cliffside archaeological site that collapsed when high winds and waves hit the shore.

"The sea gave us this amazing statue," Yigal Israel, an archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority, told Reuters. The statue stands about 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall and weighs about 440 pounds (200 kilograms). It's thought to date back to the Roman occupation of what was western Judea, between 1,700 and 2,000 years ago. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Israel as saying the statue "was apparently imported from Italy, Greece or Asia Minor, and may have represented the goddess Aphrodite."

The statue, which is to be placed on museum display, brought little joy to Israeli archaeologists. They say the storm washed away other artifacts from the site, and did serious damage to the ruins of coastal Caesarea. "We don't see this discovery as such good news," one of Israel's colleagues at the antiquities authority told Reuters. "Better than relics remain hidden and protected than that they be exposed and damaged."

For another perspective on the discovery, check out The Associated Press' report in our Science section.