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

Way cool...

[Kr3m3Puff]

I have to just admit the awe I have in watching the SOHO Video... that is just totally amazing. Makes you feel teeny weenie small, doesn't it?

Forget Iraq, the 2004 Election, the economy...

And people question our space exploration budget!!! Silly people!

"It's coming right for us!" *WHOOSH* "Kick Ass!"

[n9fzx]

Note that as an X17, this flare is 10x the size of last week's little girly man X6 (log scale). And, unlike the X20 of two years ago, we're directly in its path. So, the resulting aurora should be on par with the 1989 event.

Batten down those scintillation counters! Unhook the HF radios!

Re:A question about the Sun's behavior

[isaac]

The sunspot cycle (which takes 11 years) peaked in 2000, yet there's an unusually large amount of activity of late. There was a somewhat intense solar flare a few days ago, and now this one, which is believed to be the third-largest one on record. Are there any explanations for this large amount of activity at what should be a non-peak time?

Let's see:

• The roughly-11-year solar cycle is just based on observation and correlation. It lets one make certain predictions about the likelihood of solar events, but that's all.
• Recorded history isn't very long compared to the sun's age, to say nothing of the still-shorter track record of scientific solar observation. The sun may (and probably does) exhibit other epicyclic phenomena on timescales too long for us to have directly measured.

That's a start. Just because we're past the predicted peak of current cycle doesn't mean there won't be solar activity.

-Isaac