Another Solar Storm Approaching

RZG writes: "Aurora might be visible again across the mid-latitude portions of the U.S. and Europe, thanks to the CMEs (coronal mass ejections) associated with two powerful X class solar flares, and some smaller flares. The activity may begin in the next few hours, and last up to several days. The NOAA predicts another G3 class storm. Watch Spaceweather.com, the NOAA's space weather forcast, or this solar activity report for more information. The geomagnetic storm could cause power and satellite failures."

Comments

Re:So...

[Bryan Andersen]

This one is counter to our magnetic field. One of the reports on the original story's links points this out. I can't wait till night fall. I scouted out a few really dark fields around Minneapolis, MN where star watching is great. My plan is to plant myself at one of them with the wide field camera to catch the night skys.

Re:So...

[jabber]

What matters much is the polarity of the storm. IANA{astro-meteorolgist}, but I recall from a Discovery/Learning Channel show that a solar storm can be north or south polarized.

If it's in-line with Earth's magnetic field, it tends to just flow around the planet without causing any major issues,

If it's counter to our natural shielding, it causes spectacular light shows, messes with RF communication, disrupts electrical flow in the power grids (sags, spikes, outages), fries satellites, plays havoc with air traffic control and on-board aircraft systems, and causes people at high altitudes in the north polar regions (Canada and up) to see Yeti, Bigfoot and Elvis.

Re:Environmental impact statement

[EricWright]

Yeah, but you forget that the van Allen belts will shield approximately 100% of that radiation. As long as you stay within a few hundred miles of Earth, you're ok... you ARE within a few hundred miles of Earth, right?

Eric

hmm

[Yarn]

Solar wind is mostly ionised particles.
This is a solar wind storm, right?
Therefor, its an ION STORM...

ARRAGHG... KEEP THOSE CLICKING GREEN THINGS AWAY FROM ME...
*is carted off to daikatana rehab, and prescribed 2h of CounterStrike per night*

Watch it in Real-Time

[rjb73]

The ISTP site has a nice page that links to all the instruments that will be studying this in real-time. For those who want to watch the Ionosphere, try the SuperDARN Ionospheric Radars real-time page. (Gratuitious Plug - This is my page).

Solar Status Monitor

[The Dev]

Perhaps now would be a good time to add my Solar Status Monitor as a slashbox.

Picture

[yellowstone]

Check out http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap00 0608.html for a very cool false-color X-ray image of the sun showing "[an] active region generating the explosive events"

Also watch http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ every day for the astronomy picture of the day (almost always interesting, and sometimes root window art)

This is going to be very useful

[pieterh]

The timing is just perfect, now I can blame all the new bugs in the monster project we're making on solar interference. The last excuse, e-mail viruses, no longer works. "Oh, it's normal that you can't see more data on that screen - IBM patented the More button, Microsoft patented the scroll bar, and there's an X-Class solar flare in progress!!

Front passed just before 9AM UTC

[Bryan Andersen]

The ACE Real Time Solar Wind plots jumped from around 500km/s to 800km/s just before 9AM UTC (+0000). I can't wait to see what it will look like tonight.

if you have interest in these things

[boing boing]

as I do, you might enjoy this site. It gives a better format in my opinion that NOAA, but it is essentially the same data.

Direct Links to SOHO Observations of the CME

[crumley]

The Solar and Helliospheric Oberservatory (SOHO) has really some really nice observations of this CME, including movies made with various instruments. SOHO orbits at the L! point so that it can make constant observations of the Sun.

I'm sure glad that they were able to pull SOHO out of its problems, it sure does make some nice observations.