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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."
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.
And we're supposed to have rain the next couple days! After months of mostly clear skies! Aaaarghgh!
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
I suppose this is yet another day when we can't look directly at the sun ?
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
HF radio propagation, and to a lesser extent VHF, depends on the relative height and RF permeability of the D, E, and F1 / F2 layers of the ionosphere. Both of these properties can change dramatically when the earth is bombarded with charged particles and high-energy photons from solar flares.
:) I'm not sure about the exact mechanism of ionospheric excitation during a solar flare, for instance: it might be due primarily to heavy charged particles from the solar wind, or it might be due to high-energy photons knocking loose a few extra electrons here and there. Any physics types around who can clarify?
Normal ionospheric behavior is the reason why AM broadcast radio reception varies so much between daytime and nighttime hours. The lower (D) layer of the ionosphere is much thinner and higher at night when it's not being hammered by as much solar radiation. The AM broadcast band is near the very bottom of the high-frequency radio spectrum, and long-distance propagation of lower radio frequencies depends primarily on refraction by the D layer. So whenever the D layer rises, the "skip zone" around a given transmitter grows considerably. It's common to see nearby AM stations fade out at night, while even low-power transmissions become audible from thousands of miles away.
Solar flares have the same basic effect as the day/night cycle, but to a much larger degree. They usually just hose the entire HF spectrum, but sometimes the effect is very different. Under the right conditions, "ducts" and other layering effects can occur in the ionosphere, capable of propagating signals extreme distances with much less than normal loss. When you pick up a 5-watt ham radio station in Australia on your handheld shortwave radio in Texas, it's a safe bet that some unusual solar and/or geomagnetic activity is taking place.
Disclaimer: I'm a ham operator myself, but it's been a long time since I operated on any frequency below 10 GHz, so some or all of the details above may be shaky.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
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.
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
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
maj.com has a pair of Solar Status images you can include on your web pages for real time flare info.
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/
Ehhh, you mean dis Eludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator, doc?
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Too Late, it's already nuked and glowing!
change of subject:
I remember back in 1981, at Washington University, the anti-nuke groups were protesting that "any amount of radiation is dangerous". Hence, some friends and I formed a group called SOTS (Stamp Out The Sun). "Stamp Out The Sun... because any amount of radiation is dangerous". Looks like we knew what we were talking about!!!!
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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
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 largest recorded since we've started measuring these things was an X20 in 1989. Quebec's power system overloaded that year.
According to this table, the 1989 flare is tied for #1 with one from April of this year (at least, in terms of X-ray intensity). However I don't remember hearing about any significant power or communication disruptions from the April flare.