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Today's Solar Flare
An anonymous reader writes "X1-class solar flare today (13:30 Universal Time). Still the SOHO spacecraft offers some of the all-time greatest snapshots anywhere on the web. The flare's residual activity would be shown white and at around 9 o'clock position here. There are 3 major categories, each 10 times stronger than the next: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. M-class flares are medium-sized; they generally cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth. If it were headed towards Earth, arrival is usually 48-72 hrs later (this is not coming this way). Future Mars astronauts should take a lead umbrella because one radiation day on Mars is like living at 70,000 feet on Earth." Nature is pretty.
love the picture of the earth for size comparison, HUGE!!!
It -always- rains on holiday weekends!
Isn't that what Intel said caused Pentium 4's to underperform? Must have been.
Calm down, it's *only* ones and zeroes.
what time is that in EDT? WTF is universal time? Is that EDT? A little warning would be nice. Guess I'll go outside and look for the flare.
An X1 class solar flare, huh? No wonder I've gotten so many popup ads of provocatively dressed women staring longingly into webcams today.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
"hey'll if it's hot, we just crank up the AC"
AC!=Anonymous Coward
I guess I forgot how big that sun is. Goddamn!
Too big to fail? Does that make me to small to succeed?
To paraphrase: There's this huge solar flare that could trigger planet-wide radio blackouts, but it's not headed our way. Have a nice day.
X class flares happen quite often, especially around the peak of the solar cycle (which we are currently moving away from). Often, they are not earth directed and do not cause anything so nice as aurora (even if they do cause blackouts on some frequencies). Keep an eye on spaceweather.com and notice how often these things occur. The flare referenced in the article was probably the one that occured on Friday from sunspot 95 and did not appear to be earth directed (it occured while SS95 was just comming into vision). I'm surprised that this flare got on the front page, since there have been larger ones recently (I can't recall exactly when - obviously, its effects were small enough).
....jerry falwell comes out with the inevitable "god caused this solar flare because of our homosexual degenerates" ?
yummy this is considered pr0n for all stargazers. mmmm starpr0n ;-)
Reminiscent of BOFH Excuse of the day:
Your probleme is Solar Flares, call back later if the problem persists.
(note, I'm tech support for wireless networking. YAY, less work today!)
Nuts! Better pack the SPF 120 sun screen. With that protection, only about 99.9999% of the UVA and UVB rays are blocked, so you would still be screwed. Best to stick with the lead parisol, people. I think lead-foil hats may catch on, not only with the crazy.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eit/images/Sun_and_ea rth.jpg
Just a heads up to anyone, that the size may be to scale, but not the earth's distance from the sun. I still would like to see a to-scale model of the solar system. I guess a to-scal model of the galaxy, would be a "leetle deeficult" to make ;-)
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
we have one at our campus...it's kinda neat...the sun is about the size of a softball (maybe a little bigger) and the whole solar system goes out about 500 yards or so. so if you wanted a scale model to fit in a room, the planets would probably be too small to see.
Strange how all the "plasma" looks somehow connected together.
It does not look like a solar flare, but rather like Mr. Sun sneezed and blew his tupee off.
Table-ized A.I.
Care to share the campus with this nifty model?
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Dude, trash that draft. You can do better.
In one of his books Sagan said there was a model like this at Cornell.
(* that the size may be to scale, but not the earth's distance from the sun. *)
I should certainly hope that the Earth is not anywhere near that close. 2/3 of the daytime sky would be pure sun. However, before our Sun goes nova, it will swell up so that about 2/3 of the sky will be sun according to current theories. (Not that any humans would live through the process to watch, barring special environ suits/houses.)
Some museums and campuses have scale models of the solar system including distances. In the cheezier ones, the sun is represented as a painted circle instead of a physical sphere. But even with painted stuff, you can still get a better feel for the scale. The problem is that the outer planets are often way off campus. You have to go hiking around to find them. Some students get pissed when they go hiking for miles only find a little B-B for pluto. (Now that I think about it, maybe it *was* a B-B that some kid shot into the wooden marker. Nobody would know the difference.)
Table-ized A.I.
M-class flares are medium-sized
That could make for some confusion in the Trek world:
"You idiot human! I said find and land on an M-class *planet*, not an M-class flare! [sizzle sizzle]"
Table-ized A.I.
Though I'm not usually interested in the universe, I find it interesting that the sun in this picture is more or less the same as depicted in the opening to Star Trek: TNG.
Man is the wife going to give me shit when my wireless connection between be office and the apartment goes out.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Are there any predictions as to the problems (blackouts, etc) that might be caused by this?
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
Stop talking about science. I want to talk college football! Or Golf. Science will get you nowhere, look at the job market! Science is dead. OP.
Fortunately, astronauts can find the protection they need indoors (from solar storms) ; shelter walls made of lightweight materials provide adequate shielding.
For those needing more on this, go find what you need here or, for something a little more cautious and "NASA" here.
Now only if we can get people to stop running about waving their arms and shouting "The Radiation! The Radiation!" we might get something productive done... Heh! No chance of that I guess, might as well join them...
*waves hands over head, runs about, starts screaming "The Radiation!" and giggling*
Nature is pretty.
No long winded "the world is ending, hide your computer." No inane jokes. There actually is a comment so you know the Slashdot computer didn't just pass it through cause so many people were sending it. Sums it up in 3 words.
Now I just need to get up there with a ship, perform the slingshot maneuver, and...hellooooooooo, Aeryn Sun!
*bow* chicka *bow*
Oh, wait....
SOHO Spacecraft eh? Where can I accquire one of these for my small office/home office?
My other sig is funny!
What have we got:
- a link to a "spaceweather" page that will be obsolete in a day
- a link to a "Sun_and_earth.jpg" picture from 15-Mar-1999
- a link to a "sunnow" website that will be obsolete in a day
- a link to a "Space Weather on Mars" story from June 02, 2002
Where is the _article_?
I am curious what all those red star-like dots are.
I doubt they are stars or distant X-ray sources, because those are usually overwhelmed by the Sun's local radiation. In other words, they often have to turn *down* the sensativity when looking at the Sun (strong filters), but you normally have to turn *up* the sensativity to look at stars or take long exposures. I don't know what wavelength that image is in. It does not look like X-ray nor visible light. I guess infrared or ultraviolet.
Those "star spots" are signal noise I guess, not really actual objects.
Table-ized A.I.
Try this program. Granted, it's a simulator rather than a model, but it's pretty accurate.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Genetically modified chimpanzee, with a down-regulated CMAH gene says "nature pretty".
I am, actually. These are intended only to outline the plot.
One (of several throughout the US) is centered on Boston/Cambridge, MA. The Museum of Science has organized it, and it requires some travel to see all the planets.
Here are details.
If you can get to D.C., USA, there's one along part of the Mall.
Description
You can actually see sunspots (it'll look kinda like this, but in grayscale) any time you want by projecting the sun onto paper. Binoculars work well, a telescope works even better.
Aim your binoculars at the sun, without looking into them. If you look into them, you'll only see the steam rise from your eyes as they cook. Put a piece of white paper about 2m away from your binoculars. Cover a lense so only 1 circle shows on the paper. Finally, focus your binoculars to make the remaining circle as crisp as possible. This is easiest when you mount your binoculars on a tripod, but still works by hand.
If you look closely, you'll see the sunspots.
It all goes downhill from first post
This is the information from SEC (NOAA): Only a few C class events are listed:
0221 UTC C2.8
0955 UTC C8.8
0930 UTC C6.7
You can easily see all the recent events from this plot of solar X-ray flux: (updated in real-time)
There was a minor X class flare last friday (as you can see from the plot!). This is what the poster may be refereing to:
8/30/02 1329 UTC X1.5 Sunspot 95
It was a limb event and isn't headed our way. The plot shows there were no X-ray flares today!
X class flares are fairly common (once every 2-3 weeks these days...) Usually they are near the limb or backside events and don't effect us other than a little radio interference. We might see an earth directed one from region 95 in the next few days. (But don't count on it!) If there is an X-ray event indicated by www.spaceweather.com, then check this alert page at Solar Terestrial Dispatch. These impact predictions are often very accurate! (Only updated if there is a strong earth directed event!)
It's the Endurium, i tell you!
The comparison shot got me thinking. Suppose there was a flare, say 100 times larger then one of the common X class ones. Would the radiation be enough to whipe out life on earth?
:P
Anyone have any idea. I suppose there really isn't much point in worrying about it though
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Nature is pretty" -- CmdrTaco
According to the directory listing, that photo is from March 15,1999. I know it takes a while until submitted articles are posted, but this seems a little excessive.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Nature is purty....
on the show bill nye the science guy he showed a model of this... the sun was a soccer ball and he showed alpha cantauri (the nearest star) by driving miles away... it was a very good demonstration...
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
When I was looking for that "skull" image on Google, I had "Chandra" (the X-ray telescope) and "skull" in the search terms. Here is the summary of one of the matches:
... the skeletal remains of missing intern Chandra Levy. On a remote hill of a heavily ... "
"Chicago Tribune | Chandra Levy found dead
wooded park, a man walking his dog early Wednesday discovered a skull, human
The oddest coincidences you find using search words on the web. Let's make a cult out of it. Even El Ron didn't use coincidences to their full advantage.
Table-ized A.I.
I have been happily living with GMT as the international standard and now someone has to confuse everything and start talking in UT ??? This seems like another dumb example of confusing the easy to understand...
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
"When God Lights His Farts!"
"It was a summer's tale: Just a boy, his Linux, and a head full of dreams..."
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/mp
In particular this:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/curr
is a reasonably small (3Mb) mpeg of the last 48 hours... the flare is right at the end of the sequence. Notice that although it appears on the right limb of the sun first, it's also pretty symetrical - indictating that the thing's coming straight for us.
Incidentally, if you've ever fancies getting your name on a comet, there are people who sit in front of those pages pressing ^r constantly in order to be the first to identify a new sungrazer. No, there's no software sitting processing the images in realtime for comet-like objects, and they (or rather, their ion tails) show up nicely.
Enjoy!
"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free." -- Goethe
What does "CCD Bakeout" mean? Does it mean NASA is suffering the /. effect, or does it mean a flare physically cooked the CCD elements, or something simpler, related to maintenance?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
"I still would like to see a to-scale model of the solar system."
You mean like this one? (scroll down to "A Community Solar System")
Actually better then lead would be water, as this would stop most radiation and is obviously much more pratical as its something you need anyways. Robert Zubrin's plan for Mars calls for them having a room in the spacecraft surrounded by water for when there is a solar storm on the way to Mars, and just piling some rocks on the top of their building while on Mars (IIRC).
You might want to check out some studies that have some science behind them instead of hand waiving and talking about moving astronauts into the food locker or wrapping a copper wire around the spaceship (which reminds me, it is an excellent exercise for the student to calculate the gyroradius of a charged particle as well as the magnetic field from a ring of current; do that for some solar energetic particle events and see what kind of currents you need to carry to make a dent in their trajectories).
A quick search of papers written by people who have some grounding in science turned up this one and this one (the second one has worst case shielding thicknesses of 20 cm Al which would be more than a few water bottles). You can also track down the several times the National Academy of Sciences covered the issue (hey, find your own links 'cause I ain't gonna spoon feed the whole thing to you!).
You can belittle the problem, but please refrain from ridiculing people who can calculate particle rigidities, who know what kind of momenta these particles in space have, and who know what the stopping potential of a material is.
"The problem is that the outer planets are often way off campus"
lol - you don't say. Which ones are in your campus? Hell of a big campus...
Didn't think so. Same as the concerns for a trip to mars.
Our astronauts must have come back 'extra well done'.