X17 Solar Flare Sends 2B Tons of Plasma at Earth

Dr. Zowie writes "This morning a very large solar flare erupted from a large sunspot group that is crossing the face of the Sun. The explosion sent over 2 billion tons of material hurtling across the solar system toward Earth. Movies from the SOHO spacecraft show the flare in UV and the associated coronal mass ejection in visible light as they happened, and the impact of high energy protons that the flare launched at about half the speed of light. NOAA's Space Environment Center shows that the Sun's X-ray brightness went up 100x during the flare. Expect more aurora and geomagnetic effects in the next day or two!"

Comments

For those whose first response is "WTF?"

[mandalayx]

My first response to the article was "WTF?" but I decided to do something more productive than that. Perhaps you might find this more accessible to you as well:

The Sun today unleashed what appears to be the third most powerful flare in recorded history, a storm of charged particles that could hit Earth mid-day Wednesday with more effect than any since 1989, when an entire Canadian province had its power knocked out.

Depending on the storm's magnetic orientation, it could set off a dramatic display of colorful northern lights well into mid-latitudes of the United States and Europe.

Meanwhile, satellite operators and power grid managers are preparing to endure a potentially damaging event. And astronauts aboard the International Space Station have taken cover from heavier radiation sent out by the flare. They are not expected to be in any serious danger.

Kicked up at 6 a.m. EST (1100 UT) today, the major solar outburst comes on the heels of four other flares late last week and over the weekend. All were considered fairly severe, but the latest eruption makes the others seem like solar sneezes.

Today's blast is classified as an X17, where X denotes a major flare and larger numbers are stronger. That compares to two flare-ups over the weekend that were rated less than X2.

"The flare today may be the third strongest X-flare on record," said Paal Brekke, deputy project scientist for the SOHO spacecraft, which first spotted the event.

A slightly stronger flare on April 2, 2001 was not pointed at Earth. Today's storm is headed directly at us and could generate fantastic colorful lights in the atmosphere, known as aurora. The storm associated with the flare is called a coronal mass ejection, an expanding bubble of charged particles that race outward.

more

Re:For those whose first response is "WTF?"

[jmv]

with more effect than any since 1989, when an entire Canadian province had its power knocked out.

Yes, that province was Quebec and we were in the dark for 2-3 days IIRC. A the time, the power company (Hydro Quebec) said "it's because of the sun" and everybody made fun of them.

I wonder if this was also due to the very long power lines (>1000 km) we have from the hydro plants to the cities... I heard they also make perfect antennas for sending 60 Hz waves into space.

Re:So will I ...

[Anonymous Coward]

spaceweather.com has an interesting service that will page you if there is an aurora in your locality. Check it out.

Re:So will I ...

[Donwulff]

These events are already causing a slashdot effect on the solar weather sites without Slashdot even mentioning them, so here's a copy of the best report I've come across, from http://www.spacew.com/cme/index.html:

Event #49 - 28 October 2003

Issued: 16:30 UTC, 28 October 2003

SOURCE EVENT

Class X17.2 Flare in Region 486 at 11:10 UTC on 28 October 2003
Type II: 1250 km/sec
Estimated LASCO-derived Plane of Sky Velocity: 2125 km/sec

ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL OF SHOCK AT EARTH

Estimated Impact Window: 00:00 UTC on 29 October to 21:00 UTC on 29 October
Preferred Predicted Impact Time: 08:00 UTC, 29 October 2003 (3 am EST on 29 October)
Estimated Shock Strength (0=Weakest, 9=Strongest): 9

Predicted Behavior of IMF at Shock Impact

At Shock Impact, the Interplanetary Magnetic Field is predicted to initially turn:
SOUTHWARD

IMPORTANT TIME OF ARRIVAL NOTICE FOR NORTH AMERICANS
The preferred time of arrival is ***TONIGHT***, TUESDAY NIGHT (before you go to bed that night) near or after 3 am Eastern Standard Time).
That's 2 am Central Standard Time on TONIGHT.
That's 1 am Mountain Standard Time on TONIGHT.
That's MIDNIGHT Pacific Standard Time on TONIGHT.

EXPECT RESIDUAL ACTIVITY (LESS INTENSE) TOMMORROW NIGHT (WEDNESDAY, 29 OCT) AS WELL !

EVENT #49 NOTES:

This is the most energetic Earthward-directed event of the solar cycle.

SEVERE to MAJOR geomagnetic storming is expected to abruptly commence following the arrival of the shock front from this flare.

This flare was associated with a Ground-Level Event. It was also associated with very high energy protons at greater than 100 MeV (which are still climbing, over 5 hours after the event began). A magnetic crochet was observed over the daylit sections of the ionosphere. An exceptionally intense shortwave fadeout and polar cap absorption event are in progress. There are reports this event was observed in white-light. Intense radio bursts were associated with this event across the spectrum. The type II shock velocity is not representative of the observed velocity of this CME. The observed velocity as determined by SOHO was 2125 km/sec.

This event has the potential to produce the strongest geomagnetic storm since 1989. Auroral activity could become visible into the deep low latitude regions. This one is worth driving a good long distance over to find clear skies. It has better potential to produce low-latitude aurora than almost any other event observed in the past decade. Keep in mind that it is also possible the disturbance may not be nearly as geoeffective as many would like. It all depends on the character of the magnetic fields imbedded within the coronal mass ejection. However, we believe it will either be very large, or only modestly large in terms of its capacity to produce disturbed geomagnetic and auroral activity. We do not expect this disturbance to be small.

These predictions may be based on preliminary data and may be revised without warning. The predictions should not be used as a definitive indication of CME impact times or strengths and may frequently be in error. The proprietary methods used to estimate shock impact times are under continual development. Caution is advised.

Re:next day or two?

[Donwulff]

They had an odd way of putting this. The proton flare caused a solar storm which hit Earth within minutes of the flare commencing. However, the associated CME is significantly slower (Still over 2000 kilometers per second) and will hit within hours. The CME will have higher total energy and is what will cause fluctuations in the gemmagnetic field, ie. a gemomagnetic storm. "Next day or two" is probably because they didn't know this was a high-speed event yet.

Re:X17

[Jedi Holocron]

This list is based in part on "Large Solar Flares Since 1976" compiled by IPS Radio & Space Services.

Ranking Day/Month/Year X-Ray Class

1 02/04/01 X20.0
1 16/08/89 X20.0
2 28/10/03 X17.2
3 06/03/89 X15.0
3 11/07/78 X15.0
4 15/04/01 X14.4
5 24/04/84 X13.0
5 19/10/89 X13.0
etc.. etc..
"

I would have suggested classifications go to 11, but clearly they go much higher...

Flares effecting local radio and TV

[contrabassoon]

You may notice Radio TV, and even cell phones will be effected (briefly) by this storm. I am on a Broadcast Engineer's mailing list and there have been sporadic reports of problems in the last few days.

The engineer at WBRC reported a rash of viewer calls in the past few days about reception problems including a call from a distant (100 miles) cable system with 4 separate headends, each exhibiting the same poor signal for minutes at a time then clears up.

Also, NOAA describes the geomagnetic affects on radio blackouts as "severe" in the last 24 hours . http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SWN/
Are any of you having similar listener/viewer complaints?

Re:A question about the Sun's behavior

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any explanations for this large amount of activity at what should be a non-peak time?

Yes - it's not a large amount during a non-peak time.

It's a normal amount for this time period, the only difference is that the recent ones are actually being sent towards us, so they affect us more..

CME's are a pretty regular occurrence, and they do follow an 11-year cycle, but most of them never affect us, because we're not in the path of the flare. (Think about it - the earth occupies a pretty small percentage of real estate around the sun - so there's a pretty small chance that a CME will send stuff our way.)

The amount is normal for this time period, it's just that the recent ones are aimed at us.

The last of these warnings...

[BDew]

Due to a fight on Capitol Hill, NOAA's Space Environment Center (which tracks these events and other 'space weather' items) will not have any funding in 2004. The part of Congress that oversees NOAA does not think NOAA should have to pay for this, and has decided to cancel its funding in hopes that they can force NASA or the Air Force to pick up the tab.

There is a hearing on the situation on Thursday the 30th.
http://www.house.gov/science/press/108/108- 128.htm

Obligatory

[OverlordQ]

torrent link since the movies were getting a bit sluggish :)