Slashdot Mirror
Flare Sends A Gigaton Of Solar Detritus Toward Earth
Dr. Zowie writes: "This morning at about 10:00 UT, a
major explosion occured
on the Sun. The solar X-ray output went up by over 1,000 times. About a
billion tons of material are
speeding toward Earth at over a million miles per hour, and should
hit sometime in the next couple of days. Low latitude aurorae and anomalies in radio communications and
power service are likely consequences. You can see the event from
the SOHO spacecraft's
home page -- images and movies are here.
In the movies, watch for the burst of radiation hitting SOHO about 13:00 UT -- that's a high energy proton storm caused by the flare itself. You can also see the earthly effects of a similar event from last year."
Get that sunblock!
Another great resource for information on solar activity is SpaceWeather.com.
NASA always has several informative mailing lists that can at times be very interesting.
1 billion tons == 1,666 WTCs according to media reports estimating the weight of the WTC rubble at 600,000 tons.
The sky is falling...
Here's my mirror of the two coolest "wallpaper" size images:
The Blue One
The Green One
-davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
Sorry 'bout that ... it must've been something I ate!
Next thing you know, my gas will be knocking the moon out of orbit...
And we're supposed to have rain the next couple days! After months of mostly clear skies! Aaaarghgh!
apparently even Sol feels like throwing up when he sees the way supposedly sentient creatures treat each other....
"if they do this in a green tree...."
now, if we could only steer this stuff towards Northern Afghanistan....?????
Damn It! Where's Bruce Willis when we NEED him????
Ten quid, she's so easy to blind. And not a word is spoken...
Now, if only we can catch Osama Bin Laden in time to launch him into space to catch this thing in the face...
Wikia
Shouldn't we be able to calculate time of impact a little more precisely than this?
(sp?) If not, we would be Tater Tots in about 10 hours or so. Really, though, without an electromagnetic field, our planet would pretty much be blasted by the "solar wind" to the point that Mars or Venus would look like a vacation area compared to that version of hell. Another point not to forget is the ozone shield which filters out most UV radiation, where no shield was good at first (to cause mutations into higher lifeforms, like plants, but is now bad) but now is essential to not irradiate humans into extinction. Of course CO2 is bad/good because it will raise/lower global temperatures soon/never so our lives will be altered now/never. This last part is motly right.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
..anomalies in radio communications and power service are likely consequences.
The ultimate slashdot effect!
I knew I should have invested in that UPS.. sigh.
air and light and time and space
this image pretty much tells all:
http://www.sel.noaa.gov/ace/SIS_7d.html
Fire in the hold!
http://www.spaceweather.com has more information about this flare.
n Storms
It is a class S3 flare, which is strong enough to expose people travelling in commercial jets at high altitude to radiation equivalent to 1 chest x-ray. On average, the Sun only has about a dozen storms this strong or stronger every solar cycle (11 years). In other words, it's a fairly big one. (reference: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/#SolarRadiatio
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
This morning at about 10:00 UT, a major explosion occured on the Sun
God damned terrorists!
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Butt Bongo Fiesta to you too!
For sure, I will be out with my VLF reciever to see if there are any whistlers. Ideally, one would decamp immediately to northern Sweden or Alaska to be certain of getting under some Aurora. Its quite interesting that the sound of Aurora and solar flare activity arent used in Discovery Channel programmes, news programmes & such like; its sounds MUCH better than the cheezy muzak that they normally use to illustrate the moving pictures.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Flamebait? Maybe this whole solar flare thing is my fault then eh?
air and light and time and space
Doh! So much for my glorious uptime! :(
You're a suburbanite.
Satellites will likely be affected, indeed some may either have their onboard electronics so disrupted they cease to function temporarily or permanently, in other cases the cameras they use for determining proper altitude may become so filled with transient glitches that they loose lock & station-keeping is compromised.
The Earth's ionosphere will expand and the Van Allen Radiation Belts will become heavily charged resulting in numerous radio transmission oddities ranging from increased static interference to long skips. Low Earth Orbit objects will experience increased drag and possibly require altitude increases. Inhabitants of the ISS should be protected by the magnetosphere though increased radiation counts will be experienced.
Long-distance electrical transmission lines will build up significant charge. The lines in Northern Quebec are especially vulnerable from to their high latitude and lack of grounding due to the ancient granitic nature of the Canadian Shield. However measures put in place since the "Great Northeast Blackout of 1965" should be sufficient to keep any failures local and not produce a domino effect.
To Geeks the result will be poor phone and dataline connections, possibly isolated electrical outages. TV signals will be poor as will most other forms of radio & microwave transmissions. Doubtless a few bits will flip from one state to another in the course of this but this will only be noticeable in very large samples.
The good news is we've just passed the first Solar Maximum of the Information Age without great issue and this bodes well for the future. Though storms like this current one are possible (with diminishing likelihood) for the next year or so it appears fears of widespread disruption due to Solar-Max of were unfounded and along with the GPS rollover, y2k, unix t_time going to 10 digits, various odd dates etc. we've managed to come through all remarkably unscathed.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
You know better than to post an article with such big words as Detritus and Gigaton at 2:00 in the morning.
We had a talk on solar flares in the physics department in July, that had been planned for quite some time beforehand I think --- and quite fortunately, the Bastille day flare shot up a week beforehand. So they showed all the cool movies on the big screen, and gave free DVD's to everyone in the audience. The movies on the big screen were absolutely marvelous.
The flare was so bright, diffraction patterns were all through the image. They were actually able to use the diffraction pattern to get super-resolution out of the camera, IIRC.
Very funky.
TimC.
Ladies and gentlemen of the House, we have yet again faced a grave terrorist threat. United States intelligence was unable to detect and then stop this obvious terrorist attack to collide material from our sun. Clearly the terrorists weren't finished with the WTC, they must now slam something into planet earth's atmosphere, and yes, even earth itself. The success of this attack is a direct result of our nation's intelligence agencies inability to crack strong crypto used by terrorists. It is obvious to demand that all cryphers hence forth have back doors for us to use to help prevent such senseless acts of wanton violence in the future.
Why bother.
What will happen if a good sized chunk of this material strikes an important building and knocks it down? Will the Shrub then wage war against the sun?
I hadn't realized that Disaster Area was scheduled to play this month. And me without rubber bungs for my ears.
This site also gives a good report on solar activity. (Its from the Radio DX-Listeners' Club in Norway. They keep an eye on this type of thing because it effects their radio communications quite severely, especially since they are at quite a northern lattitude.)
-- We don't understand software, and sometimes we don't understand hardware, but we can *see* the blinking lights
Hasn't anyone decided who to blame for this yet? We must have someone to blame or we can't really talk about it. Everything should either be blamed on Osama bin Laden or on Bill Gates from now on, just for simplicity. It would make things so much easier for those poor news anchors out there currently struggling with big words like consequentialism and causation.
Great. Sun has blasted a heap of debri all over planet Earth. My Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) is never going to be the same. With all this debri strewn across it, it's basically useless. SUN Microsystems should not be allowed to get away with this. Who do they think they're are? It's an atrocity. I am calling my lawyer now to discuss possible damages related to the Sun discharge.
Sorry. Just had to say it. :)
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
No need for evidence, let's blame Bin Laden as last week's event. After all who can make a better scapegoat ? Any forgotten spacecraft operation manual written in arabic in the incoming garbage ?
-- javaDragon is an instance of JavaDragon.
That would fit in with the general "The Gates Satan" theme here.
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
Does this mean its time for another disastermovie with something about to hit the earth and we have to fire/blow/drill it to dust before the counter reaches zero OR am I just excited for nothing?
/Smuffe
Where is the kaboom? There was supposed to be an Earth shattering kaboom!
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
those mpegs can burn your retinas after prolonged viewing.
I suppose this is yet another day when we can't look directly at the sun ?
I'm not a expert so i'm asking.
How do solar flares cause radio interferrance?
Thanks in advanced for fullfilling my curiosity.
--toq
And send it out as a chain mail...
hows:
when the blue turban man
wields the power of his sword
even the sun will burst out
and light his road
A crank is a little thing that makes revolutions
Earth's cross section is Pi*r1*r2 = Pi * 6378 km x 6357 km = 1.27e8 km^2 = 1.27e14 m^2
Assuming 1 billion metric tons, that's 1e9*1e6 g = 1e15 g.
Which gives 1e15/1.27e14 g/m^2 = 8 g/m^2.
Quite a surprising result. (If the tons were not metric, you will need to multiply by the appropriate lameness factor.)
The radiation and interferance caused by this seem to be having some effects on communications. Trouble getting through scarmble dtaa and such.
Anybody not wearing number two million sunblock in gonna have a real bad day, get it?
I can see it from SOHO my small office or home office. Why would that be? Internet access? Skylights, what?
This will be a good wallpaper... :)
I rather be free in hell than a slave in heaven.
This morning? Must have been yesterday (24th September) at 10:00 UTC, it's not even 10:00 UTC today yet.
Unselfish actions pay back better
pr0n K1ng is busy surfing http://www.thehun.net , for he has mastered the art of one handed surfing...
- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
When's the one gonna hit that's gonna kill us all? Or at least damage us? Does anyone else agree that in the aftermath of this WTC/Pentagon crap the whole _WORLD_ needs something that they have to pull together to work on? A common enemy (or whatever you choose to call it) that we as human beings have to pull together to fend against? I think that a sort of massive global threat would pull this world together and end all the political bullsh*t going on right now... for at least a little while
Also the qouted gigaton of mass loss is not really that much. The Sun has 2x10^30 kg, and loses 5x10^9 kg per second (one from solar wind, four more from conversion of mass into the radiated energy). So one gigaton is just 200 seconds of normal mass loss.
Atleast, now "they" know where "he" is ?
Voltaire: God is dead.
God: Voltaire is dead!
Please tell me I wasn't the only one that saw SOHO Spacecraft thought Small Office/Home Office. Though a spaceship office whould be cool.
Andrew
In times of solar flares, the BOFH recommends: "MAGNETS. Wrap your disks up in a pillow case with lots of magnets - Solar Flares hate that"
The truth about Scientology, Xenu, and you: Operation Clambake
poor airline ppl, all the extra zoomies they get, hmm maybe i'll be able to get some cool radio stations on my old vacume tube RCA reception device.
well i'm sure we didnt throw anything at the sun to create such a situation.
I'd think this is really going to play havoc with operations in Afganistan. Considering that the US depends on its satelliates and wireless links for intelligence and communications to coordinate everything from troop movements to weapons targeting, whereas the Afgans just need to sit tight in fragmented zones and shoot anything that moves. Usually satellites need to be shut down to protect it from solar events, I'm not sure if that's true for military satellites, but this sure is really lousy timing.
"Love is never saying you're too proud." -Tonic
Doubtless a few bits will flip from one state to another in the course of this... Forget PGP, I've got Solar Flare Encryption!!
I use this site to guage the probability of northern lights. If it's red and you're north of NYC, you've got a good chance to see some.
---
Simpsons Quote:
Skinner: [faking a yawn] Well, that was wonderful. Good time was had
by all. I'm pooped.
Chalmers: Yes, I guess I should be --
[notes entire kitchen is on fire]
Good Lord, what is happening in there?
Skinner: Aurora Borealis?
Chalmers: Aurora Borealis? At this time of year? A this time of day?
In this part of the country? Localized entirely within your
kitchen?
Skinner: Yes.
Chalmers: May I see it?
Skinner: Oh, erm... No.
-- Skinner and Superintendent,
"Twenty-Two Short Films About Springfield"
---
Krispy Cream is people
I just know this is going to bugger up my reception for the broadcast of the ST:Enterprise premiere. :/
I hope you mean "I hope it lands on the terrorists".
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
The Econimist recently had an artical about new research in solar activity found here They mention how this sort of forcast would have been very difficult before SOHO (mentioned in the orig. post). Good ancilary reading...
"Smithers since the beginning of time, man has longed to destroy the sun."
Bet they're all cozy in their bunkers by now...who'da thought they'd go after the sun too? did they hijack the space shuttle? America demands answers!
I think we should bomb the Sun in retaliation.
Nuke it 'til it glows.
... an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain ... -- T. Jefferson
maj.com has a pair of Solar Status images you can include on your web pages for real time flare info.
I don't see any mention of the most important side effects - this thing messes up pagers and cellphones.
To be on the safe side, I wrapped my cellphone and pagers up in tinfoil and left them in the trunk of my car, the most radiation resistant location I could think of.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
It's interesting to note that these events (the July 13 2000 mega-flare and this one) happened during a solar maximum, i.e., the peak of a 11-year solar cycle.
There is a nice explanation with graphics here: http://www.windows.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/tour.cgi?link= /sun/activity/solar_cycle.html&sw=false&sn=872223& d=/sun/activity
Note that in spite of documented variations (e.g. the "Maunder Minimum" from 1650 to 1700, where cold climate coincided with very low solar spot counts), solar emissions are assumed to be constant in numerical climate simulation models. Which explains why these simulations are not exactly accurate.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
The best way to monitor this flare is to go to http://www.sel.noaa.gov/rt_plots/pro_3d.html, which is the plot of proton flux measured by satellite GOES-8, averaged on a 5-minute period.
The 3 curves are the "event counts" for particles with an energy of at least 10, 50 and 100 MeV respectively. The curve has been leaping 4 orders of magnitude (10,000-fold) in the last 24-hours. Quite a nice flare.
If you have the dubious privilege of working at a large helpdesk, it would be interesting to see if the number of computer crashes actually increases. Modern, ultra-dense DRAM chips are requiring only minute energies to flip a bit, and this flare should provide more than enough SEUs (single-event upsets), even at sea level, to trigger random bitflips all over the world.
Anyone cares to provide empirical stats?
Sysadms who are in the process of a corporate deployment of Windows 2000 need not answer: We know you'll see plenty of random crashes :-).
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
Given the amount of grief these events cause to power lines, there must be a fair amount of electromagnetic energy available at the Earth's surface.
...?
Does anyone know how easy, or cost-effective it would be to collect and store some of the energy from solar activity, either on a national/state scale, or just over a few hundred metres ?
I realise that suitable events might be infrequent, but they might be a useful renewable energy resource if the amount were significant, even if it just reduced the load on conventional systems for a few days every so often.
Or would the "Wh" not be worth the hassle
Spaceweather.com reported yesterday:
This morning at 1038 UT a powerful X2.6 solar flare erupted near the large sunspot 9632. A radiation storm (currently S2-class) is in progess and intensifying.The explosion also hurled a lopsided halo coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. The Earth-directed CME, pictured right in a SOHO coronagraph animation, will sweep past our planet late Tuesday or Wednesday and probably trigger geomagnetic storms.
Interested in what the solar flares have affected in the past (from Roman legions to gas line explosions to Galaxy IV)?
A little NASA article.
We're at the height of the 11 year solar flare cycle. I wonder what will happen tomorrow..
That was my response.
Except you got here first...
It's the end of the world as we know it...
it's the end of the world as we know it...
and I feel fine...
Don't fret the little stuff, just smile and nod,
it will all go away
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Who's scale did they use to measure the weight?
Ophrah's??
Maybe Bill Clinton's bull-shit-o-meter...
"Just Smile and Nod." --Huck
Check out the Solscape "Solar Data Browser. If you are using MacOS or Mac OS X, this is the application for you.
Solscape is a "Solar Data Browser" application that grabs real time, up to the minute images of the Sun in multiple light wavelengths. Solscape also monitors current solar flare, geomagnetic, and Aurora activity, providing current Aurora Borealis information and warnings for your location, along with real time Aurora images when available. Solscape gets all of its information via the Internet and compiles it in a single, easy to use application. You can save and archive the data that Solscape collects for later use, and you can tell Solscape to automatically grab the data when you want.
Is'nt this the sort of thing that give ninety-
pound weaklings the power to fly or some shit?
This is just like the begining of every comic book I've ever read.
How would this affect the International Space Station?
Looks like around 2000UT, the CME hit our earth, pushing the veolicity up to around 800, and now it's about 750.. if it's clear out where you live, probably, above 55 degrees magnetic latitude will have a good chance of seeing some northern lights.. keep your eye on POES Auroral Activity or space.com's Aurora Cam. Plus, watch spaceweather.com for updates in the next day about the storm
Nope, I ment what I said. Think of all those starving supressed people that would go to heaven and be relived of their mortal suffering. The side effect of the terrorists going to hell would be good to.
Oh, great.
Here we've had cloudless nights for the last 5 months, and now that we've got what promises to be the best aurora all year they forecast... RAIN.
Get outta my storm cloud. Grumble.
Give me my freedom, and I'll take care of my own security, thank you.
The solar X-ray output went up by over 1,000 times.
Superman: AAAAGH! AAAAGH! THE LIGHT--IT BURNS!
Lois: Well, I guess you won't be hanging around the women's locker room at the Y "on the lookout for crime" for a while, huh, Mr. Man of Tomorrow?
I looked into the abyss, and the abyss looked into me--and we both winked.
I didn't realise but I've been watching this unfold over a couple of days as my soho screensaver updates. I first thought it was a problem with the image until I checked the site. Amazing. Pity we don't get northern lights in the southern hemisphere.
damn terrorists never quit!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
dr zowie, will that much solar radiation be dangerous to us humans? I mean, I'm naked a lot.
also, i have a tendency to get naked while on an airplane. is that even more dangerous since an airplane flies higher than the limit of the iambosphere? do i need to wear a lead loincloth while streaking planes?
inquiring minds want to know.
thanks!
So much for that 187,000mph speed limit eh? How are we going to see it if it's going at over 1,000,000mph????
The final word on this subject is that the story was a load of ass.
Let's assume the earth stops moving (hee hee), and we are at the average distance of ca. 150 million km from the sun. If a piece of "solar detritus" leaves the surface at an angle of 0.01 degrees relative to the earth, then (again, assuming we are not moving) we narrowly avoid death...by ~26000 km. Never mind the fact that the sun is called a "gas" giant because it is 99.9% gaseous, so sun-borne meteors tend not to occur.