Slashdot Mirror
Solar Flare Interference From 45k Lightyears Away
Wan2Be writes "Nasa has a story about a solar flare on Aug. 27 that affected our planet with radio bounces and blackouts - but it wasn't from old Sol, it was from SGR 1900+14, a neutron star about 45,000 light years away. "
Slight misconception from the summary. The event happened on August 27.
But that was August 27, 1998. Not just a couple weeks ago.
The energy of a radition source is decreasing with the cubic of the distance as everybody here surely knows. Now taking into account the vast distance a trivial calculations gives a huge amount of energy released at x=0. When you now take Einsteins formula for mass E=m*c^2 you see easily that the released enery equals the adverage mass of 2.3 neutron stars of brightness class M. ;-).
I doubt that NASA got their calculations right otherwise we would have 2 large neutron stars (a neutron star and a anti-neutron star) colliding and annihilating here. That's a little unlikely.
Perhaps they tried again to use metric units
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
...I'm getting crappy wifi signals!
Why didn't we see this coming? Did the scientists need an extra week or something?
The station faded--a blackout--and was moments later replaced by country music
The universe has a sick sence of humour! High-energy solar flares are one thing, but country music? That's just cruel!
So... something new happens that could knock us all offli@%#&$* NO CARRIER
it was the bugs, they found a way to send the flare here
"in the middle of the night and, unexpectedly, a country tune blares out of your radio, you might wonder ... did a magnetar do that?"
Or do you just have poor taste in music?
and the slashdot editor forgot to ask/check/whatever... same problem like with those register and NYT articles... stupid editors that let disguised adverts through...
about 45,000 years ago that it happened ?
You can't trust stars from outside of your own neighborhood.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
So, they are saying that after 45,000 years of travelling the shock of protons is just few minutes behind of x-ray (in fact - photons)? Give me a break, that means those fast-moving protons are moving really fast - essentially with a speed virtually equal to a speed of light (the difference would just 4.23e-12 %).
Protons are pretty heavy particles. What would be the energy of such explosion to accelerate protons to such limits? Sounds like the parent is right: it may mean only we would have 2 large neutron stars (a neutron star and a anti-neutron star) colliding and annihilating here.
Less is more !
Solar flares were a serious concern to the Apollo astronauts, who were at risk while traveling to the Moon.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Old event, new "news" story from NASA's press people. The story is datelined Sept. 12 2003.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
When I saw this story on Slashdot, I was trying to think back to having experienced any radio effects back on 27 August, but I couldn't recall any. Then I read the article and saw that it was really a 1998 event only being written about just now, 5 years later. From an academic study perspective, that's fine. The article is about these effects in general and the study being made of them. The 27 August 1998 event was merely an example of one that played a significant role. And as they report, there have been 10 of these since, and the potential for much larger ones.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
The article doesn't say anything about protons.. just X/Gamma detected.
IT mentions in the first paragraphs what a flare from the sun looks like... EM burst followed by a proton shower... but that was only from our sun.
There was no mention of particle detection from the far-away event.
Time, as you know, is all relative.
As there is no absolute time... to say "it blew up but we didnt' see it yet" is actually inaccurate... it didn't blow up as far as we are concerned until we saw it. Before that, the effects of the explosion had no effect on the universe as far as we are concerned.
It's not jjust the light from the event, but the gravitational and other effects as well.. for all intents and purposes, the event doesn't happen until we see it.
Looks like the AMD will get smoked.
I, for one, welcome our new [insert name of aliens living on planet orbitting SGR 1900+14] overlords.
Isn't it interesting that radio amateurs were one of the first groups noticed there was something strange going on?
How can it be a SOLar flare if it isn't from Sol?
Grr, slashdot is too Sol-centric...
is when people refer to something from outside our system as being 'solar' when what defines the term is OUR sun, sol. the correct terminology, if i'm not mistaken, is 'stellar' ... that is all.
Welcome our new SGR overlords.
I'd like to remind them that as a trusted lawyer I can I can round up Darl McBride and other SCO employees to slave in their salt mines.
-he who laughs last, is a bit slow.
journal
"Nasa has a story about a solar flare on Aug. 27 that affected our planet with radio bounces and blackouts - but it wasn't from old Sol, it was from SGR 1900+14, a neutron star about 45,000 light years away. "
in 1998?!?
Sister Anella would have taken ten point off for a screwup like this...
Dog is my co-pilot.
but all effects. Taken from a relativistic point of view, the event simply has not happened form our point of view until the effects reach us, and the fastest they can propagate is the speed of light. Gravitational effects included.
It's not just a matter of us "not seeing it yet".. but that it literally has not happened.
oops, the proton shower was from our sun.
Less is more !
"Protons are pretty heavy particles. What would be the energy of such explosion to accelerate protons to such limits? Sounds like the parent is right: it may mean only we would have 2 large neutron stars (a neutron star and a anti-neutron star) colliding and annihilating here."
It seems like several assuptions are being made that should not be made:
Mass of material ejected -- no where in the article was any estimates made about the amount of material shed in the magnetar's flare. The mass material ejected has a direct bearing on the amount of energy required to accellerate said mass.
Intensity of onslaught-- the article does not indicate the strength of the x-ray wavefront was other than it was strong enough to ionized the upper atmosphere. Neither was the intensity of the proton wavefont indicated, which could lead to material ejected estimates. Knowing the amount of energy and mass that arrived here would allow us to calculate the energy output required.
Tightness of beam -- the article did not mention any estimates on how tight the beam of radiation was. Depending upon the nature of the flare, the wavefront of the radiation could cover half the magnetar's sky or only a small fraction. The tighter the beam the less energy required.
The magnetic fields that caused this flare are stronger than any we have observed in the solar system. Even the puny magnetic fields humans can produce are able to accelerate protons to speeds near that of light. If I recall correctly we are currently building a particle accelerator capable of accelerating gold nuclei, not just protons, to near speed of light. Why do you think a natural magnetic field, that is millions of times stronger than what we can produce, can not do the same thing?
The idea that massive amounts of matter need be anniliated to produce the observed result is just nuts.
SELECT * FROM User WHERE Clue > 0
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...that the military has "dark" satellites and radio/tv could also gather something was going on. Also, NASA has tons of scientific experiments that run all over the planet to detect stuff like this. And, how about the weather watchers? Surely they detected abnormalities in their equipment?
HAM...CB radio on steroids. Get another hobby.
-1
Just wondering ... What if this event had to happen much closer to earth?
..
say 500 Light years
The magnetic storm woud be thousands of times more powerful
How would that affect life here on earth...
Even the solar system is outsourcing.
Solar flares tend to interfre wth my abilty to typpppppppppp
I just happened to be on HF when we were hit with the effects of this flair. I was waiting to check into a net on 7.268.5KHz when the band just suddenly went away, like god turned the propagation switch off. I couldn't receive any signals, WWV on 2.5, 5, 10, 15 and 20 MHz were gone and didn't come back for 30 some odd minutes. It was the coolest/scaryest thing I had witnessed in a long time..
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
After that solar flare, I think the only aliens orbiting SGR 1900 +14 are of the charred variety.
There is some speculation that large gamma bursts are so strong because the energy is focused via a magnetic "lens" in a narrow direction. If that is the case than its aim is as big an issue as its distance.
One could go off relatively near and not produce harmful radiation for us if it is not "aimed" at us. But if one at the opposite end of our own galaxy aimed cooincidently right as us, we could be cooked gooses.
Table-ized A.I.
Just when I thought my rabbit ears were safe due to their aluminum foil reinforcements.
This means we could send out Greenpeace to shovel all that dirty ion/x-ray radiation back into that dirty neutron star. :-)
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
I, for one, welcome our new solar flare overlords
The disturbance was all EM radiation, X and Gamma, which as you know travels at the speed of light.
There was no particle disturbance at this distance.
There is no way to detect the EM burst before it gets here..
The initial portion is what just hit us, and is what the article is about.
It's a great idea. It's just not reality.
Yes, it did happen, and the information hasn't reached us yet. Okay. From our point of view.
Different observes will percieve events happening in a different order.. therefore there is no such thing as absolute time.
There is no absolute reference from from which you can declare what order things happened in. Time marches differently for different observers, and there is no one who is more correct than any other.
It happens more often than most people know. Since 1998, Earth has experienced "about 10 similar ionization events," says Umran Inan of Stanford University. "Five of them were caused by SGR 1900+14, and the rest from unknown sources."
heh, missed it, read it again, missed it again. read it again, and uh, same story, other than right below the by line, and in the italicized bit above there is no mention of anything in 2003 in that article. sorry.
You are very right my apologies.
It is that break in the first paragraph where the caption is for the photograph. I thought the few days later was referring to Sept 12, 2003. But it was refering to August 24th and August 27th, 1998.
Again I am sorry.
But I blame that caption and that is my story and I am sticking to it,,,,, for now,
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius