The 'Perfect Space Storm' Of 1859

Polyploid Pimp writes "Bruce Tsurutani of JPL recently published a paper on the 'perfect space storm' of 1859. Apparently, this solar superstorm was so massive that it knocked out telegraphs across the Northern Hemisphere, and the aurora borealis could be seen as far south as Hawaii, Havana, and Rome. Among other interesting notes, the amount of sunlight produced in the region of this solar flare actually doubled! Although the article does not discuss in detail the effects of a solar storm of this size on our current technologies, we can all imagine (maybe something like Escape from L.A.?)"

Comments

Should be interesting

[jamesjw]

Should be interesting to see what happens when the next large barrage of solar winds and large EM fields hit, as everyone may recall a few years ago with one storm a large number of pager satellites and base stations were disrupted, something bigger could certainly bring down large amounts of sattelite based internet infastructure and play havoc with ground based equipment (most notibly WiFi networks.)

Should we be testing equipment now to minimise the unknown impact of such a natural event?

-- Jim.

Re:Should be interesting

[LiquidCoooled]

They are already planning for it, as it happens, there is a storm occuring at the moment (Classed as a Level 3 out of a scale upto 5).
The interested parties (ie utility/communications companies) all know about this and are monitoring the situation. They also estimate Aurora to reach very far south in the next couple of weeks. The article is here.

Re:Should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA and the airline industry have run extensive tests on the subject.

At the same time, it's almost like testing for massive floods, earthquakes, fires, and other dieasters. Yeah, it'd be bad if it happens. If it happens. Fortunately these events are rare. We just deal with them when they happen.

Re:Should be interesting

[MikeDataLink]

(most notibly WiFi networks.)

Really? That's odd. I would have placed a lot higher importance or "notability" on cell phone networks and emergency comminucations such as police radio, etc.

Mike

Re:Should be interesting

[LiquidCoooled]

hmmmmmm its turned all subscription on me - i found an alternative link via google though.
If this doesnt work for you, you will have to register.

Re:Should be interesting

[twiddlingbits]

I suspect there will be a few problems with some older birds and some of the newer ones too that are not well shielded. Less shield = less weight = lower cost to launch, but also shorter lifetime due to increased radiation exposure for the electronics. Some birds are just turned off until the solar event is below critical levels. SEUs (Single Event Upsets, or bit flips) due to EM levels are handled by special circuitry to minimize the loss of data. The excess energy charge on the spacecraft due to the radiation is dumped in many different ways. Purely mechanical systems are not affected by this storm. Most folks don't know but many LEO sattelites go thru a place called the South Atlantic Anomoly where the Earths own Radiation Fields are very intense and systems have to be turned off for several minutes each orbit. But it can be worse, when the earth gets hit with huge amounts of ultraviolet radiation from geomagnetic storms, the upper atmosphere heats up. This heated air rises, and the density of lower satellite orbits (about 1,000 kilometers) increases significantly. This causes drag to increase on satellites; they slow down and gravity pulls them in towards earth. Unless these satellites are boosted into higher orbits, they'll fall and eventually burn up in earth's atmosphere. Remember Skylab? It was a victim of premature entry just because of higher than expected solar activity. This effect can last for several weeks as the earths electrical field is still expanded from the flare. Systems on the ground are also well shielded, since the incident in Quebec in the 1980s where an intense solar storm knocked out the electrical grid! This is NOT to say NOTHING will happen it's just to say it won't be back to the stone ages. Now if we all lived on Mars we'd be hiding in some DEEP hole. Solar flares and how to handle them will be something that needs intense study prior to a Mars mission.

Re:Should be interesting

[Gherald]

I agree, there is nothing critical about WiFi.

Its only "notable" because its the most hip communications technology out right now.

Re:Should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Wierd, I was able to access it fine the first time, but then it demanded registration when I tried it again.

Perhaps someone should post the text, as it is pretty interesting.

Re:Should be interesting

[Mod Me God]

> Remember Skylab? It was a victim of premature entry just because of higher than expected solar activity.

Is that the end of Terminator 4? I thought Skylab had no root physical location, but existed across a network...

Re:Should be interesting

[gnu-generation-one]

"They also estimate Aurora to reach very far south in the next couple of weeks."

Spy-plane jokes aside, this sounds like a heads-up for people to drive into the country sometime and see the northern lights for yourself.

Re:Should be interesting

[Mod Me God]

Here you go:

Electric utilities in Minnesota and across the country are preparing for potential disruptions in electric supplies this afternoon, when a strong geomagnetic solar storm is expected to hit Earth.

The storm was expected to be most severe Friday, though experts said they didn't anticipate problems with communication networks.

``This is not a super solar storm,'' said Larry Combs, a space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Boulder.

So far, the storm has interfered with airline communications and radio communications for teams on Mount Everest, Combs said. But problems were not widespread.
Sun as seen from space

The storm, called a ``coronal mass ejection,'' is a mass of solar gas that swept toward Earth at 2 million mph. The usual cycle for such a storm is every 11 years; this one was expected to hit three years ago.

``It is kind of like a snowstorm in June in Colorado,'' Combs said.

Combs said power companies, which are among the center's best customers, have been notified and were taking precautions to avoid voltage problems and blackouts.

Xcel Energy spokesman Paul Adelmann said the company is monitoring the situation, with help from the North American Electric Reliability Council (NAERC).

"Our service area is not susceptible to the effects of solar flares in part because of our geology and research done in conjunction with the (University of Minnesota)," Adelmann said. Xcel does not anticipate any problems, he said, but will continue to monitor the situation for potential repercussions of any neighboring outages.

Satellites also are at risk during such storms but cell phones aren't likely to be affected unless they rely on satellites, Combs said.

``Satellites are built to live out there, but an accumulation of hits can cause problems,'' he said.

Operators can shut them down and put them in what is called a stow position until storms pass. They may need to be boosted back up to their correct altitudes after the storm.

Much like predicting a hurricane, forecasting the impact of a geomagnetic storm is difficult.

``It could just strike a glancing blow or hit head on,'' Combs said.

Bil MacLeslie, general manager for VISI.com, a Minneapolis-based Internet service provider, said the vast majority of customers will see no ill effects from the storm.

"We rely solely on land-based (wired) communications and expect little effect from the storm, but do expect customers to have issues with wireless computer networks, cellular messaging and paging services with content that originates from the Internet," said MacLeslie.

He said customers which use such transmissions may expect to see some degradation in their service.

Concern about the storm was triggered after one of the largest sunspot clusters in years developed over the past three days and produced a coronal mass ejection, similar to a solar flare, at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Lou Leffler, manager for NAERC's critical infrastructure protection , based in New Jersey, said NOAA upgraded the storm to a K7 late this morning.

"The level of intensity is based on a ranking from K1-K9. We normally don't track anything below K5," he said.

NAERC provides updates on such geomagnetic disturbances to utilities throughout the Canada and the continental U.S.

"At this level, some utilities, primarily in the northern hemisphere, may have to take action to reduce the amount of loading to the system," said Leffler. That can include reducing transfers, taking equipment offline and using generators to back up equipment.

John Kappenman, division manager for Metatech Corp. in Duluth, has been studying space weather for 27 years.

"The indicators we're seeing make this a moderate storm, which is not terribly exciting," Kappenman said. "We don't anticipate any disr

Re:Should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I weep, because because we seem utterly determined to reduce our history to a 15 seconds soundbite, confused with fiction. Skylab: America's first Space Station. Skynet: A fictional concept in a bunch of Arnie movies... Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeats it, although apparently only on basic cable...

Re:Should be interesting

[barakn]

This causes drag to increase on satellites; they slow down and gravity pulls them in towards earth.They actually speed up. But they still fall in. Basically, the drag allows them to trade gravitational potential energy for kinetic energy.

Re:Should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Having seen them before, I'm pretty sure they're actually bright enough that they can be seen in cities just fine.

And yes, they definitely are worth looking at...although people who live in places where they are common seem to react to them with a "yeah, that's an Aurora Borealis, so what?"...

Re:Should be interesting

[ahaning]

Have no fear! Your super-old shortwave radio that your long-dead father used to use will still work.

Hell, you may even get to speak with him through the wormhole so you can change the course of history. (Perhaps you could do something about this Darl McBride guy.)

Just remember to mention Yahoo!

Re:Should be interesting

[cyclone1996]

Besides testing for the impact, we ought to try to hang on to the resources we have to track these storms. I work in satellite ops, and one of the best resources I've got is The Space Environment Center, which was referenced in the story and provides real time solar monitoring and space weather predictions.

What wasn't mentioned in the story is that there is a move afoot in Congress to either drastically reduce it's funding or eliminate it altogether: U.S. Space Weather Service in Deep Trouble . All for a service that costs a measily $8 million bucks. Think about how much a "surprise" solar event costs. Since space weather can wreak havoc with high technology systems as well as a hurricane can, it's an appropriate thing for NOAA to be providing to the public, IMHO

Re:Should be interesting

[blair1q]

WiFi is "hip"?

Or did you misspell "hyped"?

Re:Should be interesting

[tho 1234]

Nope, grandparent is correct.

Drag force ALWAYS slows down an object. In this case, it produces a negative acceleration in the tangential direction. Because of its lower velocity, the radius of orbit decreases, and there may be an acceration (smaller than the deceleration in the tangential direction) in the normal direction as a result until the new orbit is reached. Overall, the net speed is decreasing.

The only reason a satellite will continue falling into the earth is because the air becomes more and more dense, resulting in an ever-increasing decelleration in the tangential direction. yes, some gravitational potential energy is converted into kinetic energy, but the acceration downwards because of this is smaller than the loss in tangential velocity due to drag.

So patent is totally wrong, grandparent is correct.

Re:Should be interesting

[twiddlingbits]

I work with science satellites and we don't want the first warning of a space storm to be when we you can't talk to our mega-million dollar birds. However, to me it looks like the Space Weather Service is redundant with a lot of things NASA and the Air Force are doing already so I agree with the cuts. Several solar observing satellites are already in orbit and I know of at least one more to come. Just transfer the "warning" responsibilty to NASA or the Air Force.

Re:Should be interesting

[Gilmoure]

Damn these pitiful, amateur attempts at humor!

Re:Should be interesting

[Gherald]

its both

Re:Should be interesting

[francium de neobie]

Not always, friction is just a means to lose energy. When the energy input for the object is purely kinetic energy, we say the object is slowing down.

That's not the case for satelites. When satelites are falling, the energy input are BOTH kinetic and gravitational potential (radius decreases, g potential decreases, work done is positive). Since gravitational potential energy is constantly converted into kinetic energy, we're losing both kinds of energy. Whether the satelite is slowing down or not depends on the rate of change of the two kinds of energies.

i.e.

kinetic energy gained = energy gained from gravitational potential - energy lost to friction

There's nothing (or, a lot of things) to dictate which rate of energy loss is greater. e.g. if your satelite is falling into a think layer of jelly then apparently you can't gain as much from gravitational potential change than friction. However if you're falling onto a planet with a very thin layer of atomsphere then you should be speeding up.

Re:Should be interesting

[tho 1234]

You're forgetting that only a fraction of an orbiting satellite's energy is in the form of gravitational potential energy- most of the energy is in the tangential direction (ie going sideways, across the sky like an airplane). A satellite is "flying" at a speed close to 30 000 km/h when it is in orbit. A huge chunk of this speed must be lost before it can gain a tiny component of speed downwards. kinetic energy in orbiting satellite: = 1/2 *mass * 9.81* ~6 500 000 metres = ~ 30 million * mass of satellite (comes from combining equations for kinetic energy and centripital acceleration) gravitational PE: = mass * 9.81 * ~200 000 metres = ~ 2 million * mass of satellite (ok, simplified formulas assuming constant acceleration due to gravity, but both equations would be affected the same if g was integrated) This relationship clearly shows that the satellite has much more energy to lose by slowing down than by falling. If you want to add a fricional force slowing its fall, then the difference becomes even larger. there IS Somthing that dictates the rates of change: height = tangential velocity squared/9.81 -take two derivatives with respect to time, and you get: acceleation down = 0.2038 *(negative tangential acceleration) (again assuming constant g, but you'll find the same thing if you accounted for varing g) The total speed is simply sqrt (Vtan squared + V down squared), and you'll find that in ALL cases, the total speed is decreasing. So in all cases, the satellite is slowing down, regardless of the atmosphere or drag force. If you want to account for the drag also slowing it down in the vertical direction, then you'll find an even larger net deceleration.

Escape from L.A.?

[naitro]

(maybe something like Escape from L.A.?

You mean... complete crap?

Re:Escape from L.A.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Welcome to the human race...

Re:Escape from L.A.?

[duckpoopy]

'Escape From LA' must have had a very profound impact on timothy for him to recall such a forgetable movie.

Awesome Pictures

[Zevlag]

There heading to my desktop for a while...

Affect on computer systems

[treat]

I saw several highly improbable hardware failures over the past week, particularly on the 22nd.

What is the likelyhood that this is related to recent unusual solar activity, as opposed to being a simple coincidence?

Re:Affect on computer systems

[LiquidCoooled]

I just posted something about this further up - the link is here.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed /.'s servers going down as well.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Evil Adrian]

The storm didn't start until yesterday (the 24th) as far as I know, so I don't think it's related to the storm...

Re:Affect on computer systems

[freeweed]

I saw several highly improbable hardware failures over the past week, particularly on the 22nd.

What is the likelyhood that this is related to recent unusual solar activity, as opposed to being a simple coincidence?

Seeing as the flare/storm would take a couple of days to reach the Earth, I'd say pretty much 100% that it was a simple conincidence.

Besides, what the article talks about is not an Electro-Magnetic Pulse type effect, where all electronic systems are affected. It's mostly orbiting electronics, and large ground-based systems such as power grids that get hit. I imagine because the large scale infrastructure such as kilometres of power lines turn into huge antennas for this stuff. (IANAP, in case you can't tell :)

Re:Affect on computer systems

[AssFace]

we had a SCSI drive self destruct on Monday or Tuesday of this week. the rebuilding of that server and the headache on our network was what I spent my week doing.
on the good side, it helped me argue for a much better backup system and a new server to add - so perhaps it was a good thing.

that drive was at least 5 years old though, so perhaps it was just time for it - if the new drive that in there dies, soon, then I will certainly wonder.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[CoyoteGuy]

Seeing as the flare/storm would take a couple of days to reach the Earth, I'd say pretty much 100% that it was a simple conincidence.


Actually, the X-rays produced by the flare travel at the speed of light, and would only take minutes to reach the earth. It's the ball of gases from the coronal release that take 2-4 days to reach Earth you are referring to.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a hell of a day on the 23rd related to events on the 22nd. Odd coincidence, I'm sure. Shit never went so wrong before.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard a weird pop

Well, at least that's progress. Usually it's just boring thirteen-a-dozen Britney Spears stuff they play. I wouldn't mind hearing weird pop (or rock) for a change!

Re:Affect on computer systems

[cathouse]

At aprox 11 AM Pacific yesterday I was checking out the real-time graphs of both the X-Ray flux and the EM flux from the NOAA.ORG site based out of their high-altitude observatory in Colorado, just when their site went down [a few min before /.] and had the 48 hour graph showing the levels at the time of the crash to compare to the previous two days. Two days prior was lower by less than one half an order of magnitude [they were graphing by -.05 so half a division would be...?] That seems like more than enough loose-juice to cause plenty of weirdness.

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

If only this storm could crash all DRM systems world-wide! And that nasty software that the RIAA uses to track innocent file-traders!

Re:Affect on computer systems

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly abductee. That's when you slam on the brakes, jump out of the car, open the trunk, and paint a large "X" on the ground. Don't you watch X-Files?

Re:Affect on computer systems

[dbIII]

And on the road right before my house a bunch of street lights were flickering. I was listening to the radio, then as soon as I went under the first light, I heard a weird pop and my radio stopped working.

Happened to me too - just as this old guy in a bathrobe was waving his lighter around.

Solar Activity and Humans

[ch-chuck]

I'm really starting to thing there is a close connection between solar activity and economic patterns - all the recessions I can remember, 80-81, 91-92, 2000-2002 have all occured after the peak of a sunspot cycle. What happened after this storm of 1859: The US Civil War.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[Mod Me God]

Most US recessions of the last 200 years have started in the first 2 years of their decade.

Do sun spots also follow a 10 year cycle?

[Not that I necessarily justify economic technical analysis... it just seems to purvey].

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[Nucleon500]

Sunspots follow an 11 year cycle. The economy also tends to be cyclical, though I'm not sure of it's period. I'd be very skeptical of a causal relationship between sunspots and the economy, at least until there was an explanation that made sense and could be tested.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[BryanL]

Is that why my microsoft shares were down $2.30 on Friday? If it comes in 10-11 years cycles maybe I should get out of the market in say...2009.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[Mod Me God]

I'd also be sceptical about such a relationship.

The economic observation comes down to 'technical analysis' - in this case fitting an ARIMA process over GDP. Each recession can be justified theoritically over what has happened over the past 10 years but why it is always 10 is a strange thing. Other economies (although being influenced by the US - the saying is "if America sneezes Europe [UK] catches a cold" via US demand for products/services in general) do not necessarily follow this cycle (the UK skipped the recession the US suffered shortly after the turn of the millenium but Japan has been in recession for some time).

Why are sun spots every 11 years? Is their a buildup of critical pressure on an 11 year cycle? Is the cycle fixed or can it be broken?

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[ShadowBlasko]

Not only does solar activity follow an 11 year cycle, it also *appears* to follow an annual cycle, with solar activity (CME's, sunspots) appearing to peak in late October, early November.

Why is this so odd?

Because a year on the Sun obviously is not the same as a year on the Earth, and scientist (as of yet) have not been able to pin down why solar activity seems to peak this time of year. At the moment (at least, last time I read up on it, which was during the big Auroral display in November of 2001) scientist were at a loss to explain a 12 month cycle in solar activity.

For more information, and very up to date info on the current situation with the storms, current solar wind patterns, and a gallery of GREAT pictures, try spaceweather or also
Spaceweather Now (NOAA)

Okay, typing that out made me feel stupid, so I went and re-read the article on seasonal variations, and found out I was somewhat wrong, there is a terrestrial reason dealing with OUR magnetic field that makes solar activity seem to affect us more. If you would like to read the article, it can be found Here

Anyways, keep looking up this week, (unless you live in Cincinnati like I do, and it will be cloudy most of the beginning of the week) and you might be suprised at what you see.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[Kufat]

Read Robert Heinlein's "Year of the Jackpot." It's an interesting story about statistics, cycles, and whether the human race has any more free will than lemmings do.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[nEoN nOoDlE]

all the recessions I can remember, 80-81, 91-92, 2000-2002

Maybe a recession is bound to happen at the beginning of every decade in the US? unless the sunspot cycles are affecting every other country, then your theory is flawed.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[synaptic]

It seems fairly obvious that the sun is being tugged on by the planets. We have been detecting planetary systems surrounding stars by measuring this wobble.

Surely some scientist studying our observations of apparents cycles in the sun has evaluated the effects of the planets. Jupiter, for instance, has an orbital period of ~11 years.

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[dodobh]

11 years.
And the first study on sunspots and economics was on cotton prices, which varied in some regular pattern (I can't remember what right now).

Re:Solar Activity and Humans

[TummyX]

Does the sun spin?

Maybe one side of the sun has more activity than the other.

youre not the first.

[Unknown Poltroon]

Threres a lot of documentaion and specualtion out there about this. look up sunspot cycles and econnomy and youll find a lot. There does seem to be some sort of very loose correlation between them.

Escape from LA? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[Nova Express]

The submitter had to mention Escape from L.A, bringing back a trauma I had successfully surpressed for many years. I saw it in a theater, for free at a preview screening, and still felt ripped off. I want those two hours of my life back! What an enormous waste of talent for everyone involved. I was hoping for the guilty, trashy fun of Escape From New York. Nope. It was just sad, limp and stupid. You've heard of straight to DVD? Escape from LA should have been straight to Mystery Science Theater 3000. A really crummy movie...

Re:Escape from LA? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[thinkninja]

Sad story. You got a smoke?

Re:Escape from LA? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[awfwal]

Watch Battlefield Earth.
Then you won't feel so bad about it.

Re:Escape from LA? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[Psychic Burrito]

Hey wow, you too? I saw it at the first public preview ever and boy did it stink! I still wonder to this day if they replaced one of the actresses that played hilariously badly out of place and added an ending with more "punch" - but you know what? Even after all this time, I don't feel like watching it again :-/

Re:Escape from LA? NOOOOOOOOOO!

[Tore S B]

Cute thing is... You spent 5 minutes writing this and will spend even more time checking for replies and, and.... *raises one eyebrow*

(maybe something like Escape from L.A.?)"

[DaEMoN128]

I thought every body tried to do that.

Seriously, the solar flares would wipe out most of the communications in the northern hemisphere. They help in the ionization of the stratosphere which ruins any chance of tropospheric scatter radio, the flares mess with LOS and satellite comms as well. We would all have use land based lines for a while. Damn, there goes any chance of me getting satellite net!

Re:(maybe something like Escape from L.A.?)"

[Donwulff]

Except that GIC (Geomagnetically Induced Currents) would likely render landlines unusable and possibly hazarous ;)

For the less catastrophic failure modes, see http://www.spaceweather.gc.ca/effects_e.shtml which has some quite nice resources on the "normal" effects of space-weather events.

I've read a book about this!

[arvindn]

National academies press (nap.edu) has thousands of free (public domain) books online, in pdf format. Many of them are reports of some government committees etc., but if you are prepared to dig around for a while you can find some real gems. I've read about a dozen of the books on the site, and they're really good. Check out Storms from the sun. Its an excellent book, both highly informative and very readable. Chapter 3 in particular ("A sudden conflagration") is about the 1859 storm in question. Enjoy.

mynuts won: not meteorological enough?

[Anonymous Coward]

wrong millennium perhaps? won life form's 'weather', may be another's (un)concious intentions/effort? of course, that's not /. 'stuff that matters' now, is it?

Back up on CD?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should back up on CD-R DVD-RAM rather than magnetic tape. Because one of these guys could come along and knock everything magnetic out, and most server people keep their backups on tape.

Oh my!

Re:click

[Anonymous Coward]

The image "http://venus.explosive3d.com/~explosive3d/i_love_ microsoft.jpg" cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.

whatever dude

Re:click

[Anonymous Coward]

Save it, then open it up with a simple text editor ;) Not to mention that was already posted a few posts up...

Cooool!

[aexandria]

Now I can surf and shoot a machine gun at the same time.

(maybe something like Escape from L.A.?)

[papasui]

Holy shit! I hope I never get trapped in a space storm that traps me in the same city as John Carpenter and Kurt Russell.

Great, thats all the world needs

[nih]

a sequel to that 'classic' the perfect storm... i hope they die quicker this time!

Re:click

[Anonymous Coward]

Hysterical! So this means IE looks inside the file rather than going by the extension?

We don't care

[lpret]

We don't care, we just want our okama game sphere back.

Re:OFFTOPIC: WTF IS WRONG WITH /. !?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, who's the asshole who felt the need to mod THIS down of all things.

Knocked out telegraphs??

[lord_nightrose]

OK, I'm going to have to call a tentative 'bullshit'. The article mentions that the space storm knocked out telegraphs, in 1859. Wireless telegraphy didn't come into being until much later (about 1898) - is this article trying to say that the storm was capable of taking out wired communication? As far as I know, that doesn't even hapen today. I might be wrong, of course, and I'd like to know if I am, so feel free to correct me.

Re:Knocked out telegraphs??

[lord_nightrose]

OK! Now that I've actually read the article, I'll correct myself:
RTFA!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No more movie theories!

[toddhisattva]

Don't you wish reporters and scientists would quit naming theories and events after movies?

It's getting to be so bad that the first step in research seems to be, "find a catchy name." It's more important than funding, more important even than the subject of the research. A catchy name will help get funding and therefore should determine the direction of research.

Perhaps it started in the 80s when reporters derided SDI with the title, "Star Wars." It continued with "Out of Africa" in anthropology. Now every weather event is "The Perfect Storm."

We all know that reporters are stupid. But that's no reason to dumb down science so it fits in a movie title!

Science should not be controlled by Oliver Stone.

Re:No more movie theories!

[KillerBob]

The reporters aren't necessarily stupid. It's the audience to which they write. If the average American drops his jaw and says "wha?" when you mention a solar ion storm, you make an analogy that he'll understand. Rather than complain about reporters dumbing down material, you should complain about the education system that produces people who need it dumbed down.

Re:No more movie theories!

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC, Perfect Storm is a proper scientific(metheorological?) term

Telegraph and flux

[goombah99]

When I first read of the telegraphs carching fire I thought BullShit. Afterall the telegraphs were all magneticly driven, low impedance devices--there were no small gaps to arc across or high-impedance low-voltage elements to explode. Moreover the usual situation is that a large loop is relatively hard to induce a lot of current in (transformers try to concentrate flux not spread it out, hence they are made as small as the materials allow).

but then I started thinking about it more carefully. If one had a magnetic event from the sun then what hit the earth would be an earth-wide, coherent magnetic pulse. In this case the larger the loop of wire the greater the current induced. And telegraphs had miles and miles of wires with macroscopically separated loops. thus the induced current must have been enormormous, hence the fires at the low impedance inductors at the ends.

On the other hand, the magnetic flux per area might not have been very large. hence modern electronics which are small, and generally have ground or back planes closs to the wires wont receive much induced current.

in other words the telegraphs were the optimal energy absorbers but modern devices should receive much lower energy coupling.

Re:Telegraph and flux

[goombah99]

The induced current (and emf) should be proportional to the area. if a telegraph ran, say, 50km and had a 1 meter separation between the poles then the area is 5x10^4 square meters. I would imagine that in order to start a fire the current would need to be perhaps 10 amps sustained or 100 amps pulsed. And lets imagine that the impedance was 100 ohms. so the emf was by these wild guesses in the neigborhood of 1000-10,000 volts. that sort of sounds high but lets assume that's an upper bound.

if a modern cell phone had a pair of wires with a 1 cm separation and 10 cm in length then this would be 10^-3 sq meters. or 50 million times smaller area. The induced voltage would thus be something like 50 microvolts. not enough to do any dmage even across a sensitive trasnistor junction. but maybe possibly in a sensitive radio receiver could be jammed.

Re:Telegraph and flux

[Donwulff]

Terrestrial electronics are at practically no risk from solar flares; that's thanks to our atmosphere and magnetosphere. However, yes planetary fluctuations of the planetary magentic field (geomagnetic storms) caused by the proton flux from such an event can and are known to induce huge currents into any large-scale conducts. There's a nice pic near the end of http://www.spacew.com/gic/index.html about what one 1989 geomagnetic storm did to some transformers.

An interesting overview of the threat to power networks in particular is preseted at http://www.agu.org/sci_soc/eiskappenman.html with the lead-on that "Only a few amps are needed to disrupt transformer operation, but over 100 amps have been measured in the grounding connections of transformers in affected areas."

Ofcourse, the problem isn't limited to telegraph and powegrids; all large spans of conducts are affected, such as pipelines, land phoneline systems and even railways. http://sumppu.fmi.fi/MAGN/GIC/ provides realtime data on Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) at some power grids and pipeline operators in the Nordic countries as well as more information on this aspect.

Re:Telegraph and flux

[Technician]

Don't forget that most early telegraph used a single wire, not two. The return path was an earth connection. This makes the above ground wire a very large antenna, static current collector. Over a large distance, this could collect several amps of current. The low impedance (several hundred ohms) sounders were not made for several ten's of amps at several hundred volts. Needless to say, they went out in a blaze of glory.

For samples of this single wire connection, check out some of the old western movies where a train made a connection to a telegraph wire. They only made a single connection. This single wire has no common mode noise rejection. A large solar event can easly overwhelm this single ended application.

Re:Telegraph and flux

[Technician]

I just did a google search. The telegraph did use a single wire with an earth return. Details are here;
http://sd.znet.com/~cdk14568/mpet/chap3.htm l#para0 45

from;

Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, by
D. VAN NOSTRAND

Telegraph disruption?

[Tablizer]

Telegram: "THE BRITISH ARE CEUBLSJF SLKJF SJ"

City Official: Hmmm. I wonder what that meant. Try again, please.

Telegram: "GET FREE PENIS ENLARGER"

City Official: Damn ad-makers. Oh well. Back to work everybody. Nothin' here.

an answer to a question

[CAIMLAS]

Hrm, interesting. I've been feeling really distracted for the last couple of days - unable to concentrate and the like. I've heard that this is sometimes the effect of solar activity in people that are sensitive to their environment (dusts, molds, odors, light, and the like), as I am.

Additionally, it explains why I've been noticing a significant number of 500 errors while browsing the web (particularly slashdot). Anyone else notice this over the last couple days? Any flakey internet connectivity? My connection has been down every couple minutes for the last week or so.

On the upside, when I get calls from clients, I can now honestly tell them that solar flares are causing the problem. :)

Re:an answer to a question

[wampus]

My internet connection was up and down all last night... then I realized that my cat was sitting on my router. Cats like to play with cables. I chased the cat off and it got all better.

Inconstant Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at least it didn't melt half the Earth (or this version).

Well, let's see

[Jameth]

I use a charcoal grill for cooking, have a land-line which gets one call every week, tops, don't use the internet except when I really wish I had the self-control not to, don't always even use my computer as I'm a writer, don't own a car as I travel by bike, have gas heating for my house...

"maybe something like Escape from L.A.?"

Maybe not.

Re:Well, let's see

[FL180]

...have gas heating for my house...

Ahh, but...you're forgetting that the fan is powered by electricity.

It's ok, you can panic now. We won't watch...

:)

Gay??

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhh... Is it just me, or is the guy that is dictating it, sound gay? I thiiiink so

Re:Gay??

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just you. That is, you are "sound gay".

Solar storm in December 1991?

[SmackCrackandPot]

Does anyone remember seeing the Northern lights one night in late December 1991? There were faint blue bands that appeared to travel across the sky from the North pole heading Southwards. At a point in the sky 180 degrees opposite to where the Sun was, there was what appeared to be a + shaped glowing patch in red and green hues. Anyone else seen this?

Re:Solar storm in December 1991?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was in 10th grade at the time, partying in a field behind my house and we saw all kinds of wispy light and rainbow hues in the sky. And I was just drinking beer so you can rule out any drug induced hallucinations :)

This was in gaithersburg, maryland. I couldn't believe it would happen so far south but i knew it was the aurora.

I'm glad you brought this up, I was wondering if anyone was going to.

Re:Solar storm in December 1991?

[ShadowBlasko]

While I can't say that I remember the storm in 1991, I certainly was taken by suprise by the displays in October of 2001.

I was driving back to Cincinnati from the Carolina Renaissance Faire, and had just about reached Lexington when I noticed that the sky looking north towards Cincy was Green! Picture not taken by me, but a good representation of what I saw.

I have to admit I am truly sad to say my first thought was "Oh god, what have the terrorists done now," being that it was 2 months after 9-11, but after about 10 seconds of panic I realized it was just the northern lights.

I pulled off the road, down a few country back roads to get away from the lights, and enjoyed the show.

It really was a wonderful event, and I do credit it with getting me much more interested in space weather.

Re:Solar storm in December 1991?

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember, I was playing King's Quest on our old Tandy 1000SL, and my dad pulled me outside to look. That was the only time I have ever seen the northern lights in Cincinnati. Years later I remember in a science class fighting with an ignorant teacher who said that I was lying, and that the northern lights had been and never will be seen as far south as Cincinnati. Guess this will prove him wrong.

"maybe something like Escape from L.A.?"

[argStyopa]

Eek!

Solar storm = we all have to play a game of "death basketball".

In boots, no less.

Year of the Jackpot

[LandGator]

Old news - read Robert A Heinlein's YEAR OF THE JACKPOT. But then, what _didn't_ Heinlein write about in the 40s?

Re:haha

[Anonymous Coward]

It doesnt work. (Im using konqueror on lindows and it says taht it should suport windows' stuff.) whats the deal?? thx. ~--~~..

Re:click

[Anonymous Coward]

OMFG!!11! ur soo 31337 d00dz!!1! ROFL LOL!!

Causes....

[ThesQuid]

Cripes, now global warming is causing more severe storms in SPACE also!

Rome is in South Europe

[Lars T.]

but it's north of New York. Aurora borealis there doesn't sound that spectacular anymore, hrmm?

Re:Rome is in South Europe

[Polyploid Pimp]

Well, it still does to me. I live in Ohio at a latitude only a few minutes south of Rome's and we rarely see Aurora borealis. I admit that a aurora borealis being observed in Rome may not be incredibly unusual, I found it striking that it was observed in Rome and Hawaii and Havana. From reading some other stuff on this topic, it seems that the Northern Lights were also seen in Honduras and Panama, which would make this really a global event (as it was seen very far to the north in the Southern hemisphere as well). So maybe it wasn't Aurora borealis in this event, but rather Aurora tellus (or something).

Text of article about today's storm...

[mojine]

Untitled Document Solar storm could disrupt satellites, power grid today
Staff and wire reports

Published October 25, 2003 SOLA25

Electric utilities in Minnesota and across the country are preparing for potential disruptions in electric supplies this afternoon, when a strong geomagnetic solar storm is expected to hit Earth.

The storm was expected to be most severe Friday, though experts said they didn't anticipate problems with communication networks.

``This is not a super solar storm,'' said Larry Combs, a space weather forecaster with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center in Boulder.

So far, the storm has interfered with airline communications and radio communications for teams on Mount Everest, Combs said. But problems were not widespread.

Sun as seen from spaceThe storm, called a ``coronal mass ejection,'' is a mass of solar gas that swept toward Earth at 2 million mph. The usual cycle for such a storm is every 11 years; this one was expected to hit three years ago.

``It is kind of like a snowstorm in June in Colorado,'' Combs said.

Combs said power companies, which are among the center's best customers, have been notified and were taking precautions to avoid voltage problems and blackouts.

Xcel Energy spokesman Paul Adelmann said the company is monitoring the situation, with help from the North American Electric Reliability Council (NAERC).

Our service area is not susceptible to the effects of solar flares in part because of our geology and research done in conjunction with the (University of Minnesota), Adelmann said. Xcel does not anticipate any problems, he said, but will continue to monitor the situation for potential repercussions of any neighboring outages.

Satellites also are at risk during such storms but cell phones aren't likely to be affected unless they rely on satellites, Combs said.

``Satellites are built to live out there, but an accumulation of hits can cause problems,'' he said.

Operators can shut them down and put them in what is called a stow position until storms pass. They may need to be boosted back up to their correct altitudes after the storm.

Much like predicting a hurricane, forecasting the impact of a geomagnetic storm is difficult.

``It could just strike a glancing blow or hit head on,'' Combs said.

Bil MacLeslie, general manager for VISI.com, a Minneapolis-based Internet service provider, said the vast majority of customers will see no ill effects from the storm.

We rely solely on land-based (wired) communications and expect little effect from the storm, but do expect customers to have issues with wireless computer networks, cellular messaging and paging services with content that originates from the Internet, said MacLeslie.

He said customers which use such transmissions may expect to see some degradation in their service.

Concern about the storm was triggered after one of the largest sunspot clusters in years developed over the past three days and produced a coronal mass ejection, similar to a solar flare, at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

Lou Leffler, manager for NAERC's critical infrastructure protection , based in New Jersey, said NOAA upgraded the storm to a K7 late this morning.

The level of intensity is based on a ranking from K1-K9. We normally don't track anything below K5, he said.

NAERC provides updates on such geomagnetic disturbances to utilities throughout the Canada and the continental U.S.

At this level, some utilities, primarily in the northern hemisphere, may have to take action to reduce the amount of loading to the system, said Leffler. That can include reducing transfers, taking equipment offline and using generators to back up equipment.

John Kappenman, division manager for Metatech Corp. in Duluth, has been studying

The Core

[kamilyon]

At least it wasn't caused by some twit who wanted to alter the dynamics of the center of the earth. For more info see movie in title.

Re:OFFTOPIC: WTF IS WRONG WITH /. !?

[anubi]

CmdrTaco, Leader of Slashdot, updates his journal with the latest inside info of things Slashdot.

His latest entry starts off:

"Server Wackiness, Carnivale, G5

Wednesday October 22, @07:49AM

Several problems continue to plague Slashdot, so consider this a status report, and a request to not continue reporting problems we're working on ;) ... "

I went ahead and linked his journal . Now, anyone who sees this can know as much as the rest of us of what our leader has to say of the situation.

aurora borealis

[rynthetyn]

There have been other times since then when solar storms have made it possible to see aurora borealis pretty far south. Back in the late 1980s, there was a big solar disturbance which resulted, among other things, in aurora borealis being visible at least as far south as South Florida (I know, I saw it). In that instance, there were no big problem with electrical systems.

Physical effects?

[MrFreshly]

I wonder what physical effects these are having on living creatures...Will cancer rates rise as a result of these? If there's a hole in our shield, then we're getting blasted by Gamma and X-Ray's...That's generally not good..
And how about the pilots flying commercial planes? They get a higher dosage than we ground dwellers would!

SPF 5000 anyone? Break out your aluminium melon shields!

Coronal mass ejection

[peekitty]

Been there. That's the reason I rarely drink Mexican beer anymore.

Re:haha

[ankleteeth]

"doesnt work on any other broswer though" Maybe thats because every other browser has been designed signifigantly not to tolerate lame scripts like these

Escape from LA? :(

[Sivaram_Velauthapill]

Escape from LA? Man, I'm sure there are other movies--which don't suck--that describe the phenomenon better... Escape from LA: one of the worst movies I have seen :(

Sivaram Velauthapillai

2001-2002?

[smartfart]

Um, we just pulled out of a recession, like last month. It started during the middle of your posted time span (9/11/2001).

Does anyone know about the year with no summer?

[merlin_jim]

On the topic of strange pre-industrial weather, wasn't there a year where summer was skipped? Winter for an entire year? The thames froze solid, IIRC...

How about now?

[annisette]

I am curious if your radio works now? if not probably the radio, if it came back on after a while it might be related to the storm.

Yes

[annisette]

I believe the year with out summer was when the island Krakatoa (sp?) blew it top. My guess is it was 1886.

Re:Yes

[ZerroDefex]

But wasn't the winter when the Thames froze over a different event? I remember that taking place at a time when the sunspot activity had hit an all-time recorded low.

Re:Yes

[annisette]

I know what you are refering to but I can not place the date, The 1700's come to mind but I am not sure. You mignt try British weather records on google.

Some more information

[annisette]

"It has been estimated that at least 21 cubic Km (appr. 11 cubic mile) was ejected from the eruption of Krakatoa and that at least 1 cubic mile of the finer material was blown to a height of about 17 miles (27 Km). The volcanic dust blown into the upper atmosphere was carried several times around the earth by air currents. This volcanic dust veil not only created the spectacular atmospheric effects described previously but acted also as a solar radiation filter, reducing the amount of sunlight reaching the surface of the earth. In the year following the eruption, global temperatures were lowered by as much as 1.2 degree Centigrade on the average. Weather patterns continued to be chaotic for years and there were major climatological changes which affected the entire globe. Temperatures did not return to normal until five years later, in 1888". This article dates the eruption at August 26 1883 and was written by "The Tsuami Page"-Dr.George Pararas-Carayannis. Google found

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