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."

Comments

Glad we have a magnetosphere

[bryan1945]

(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.