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NASA's Earth Observatory Shows Solar Flare
staaktdenarbeid writes "In the past few months I became very impressed with the timeliness and quality of NASA's Earth Observatory. When hurricane Isabel struck, their imagery showed me the biggest latte ever made. Now that Southern California is on fire, it takes only a look from outer space to see how bad the sitation really is. And, today, a massive solar flare showed up on their website as soon as it errupted (so to speak). Each of these pictures is accompanied by detailed technical background. And for the rest of us, they also make perfect screen backgrounds. Very cool."
and better yet, just go to some recent aurora pics to see what this one probably will look like...
find / -name "*.sig" | xargs rm
...how far down the US will the Aurora Borealis be showing?
This article says maybe as far as the southern US.
New images of the xray sun are being taken by the SXI imager once again. Use of the imager had stopped because of an unexpected over-current problem. The SXI team decided that they could safely operate the instrument at a lower voltage, albeit at the expense of a lower signal to noise ratio. The decision was hastened by the dramatic solar events today.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
This page has a similar picture. It is from NASA's SEAWIFS project. It shows the same fires in a larger area and zoomed out to give a better perspective. Click on the smaller picture to get a gigantic version of the smaller one.
The shielding that we've got is pretty thick, but no match for the massive amount of neutrinos and other charged particles that we are bombarded by
Neutrinos are not charged, and they won't harm you.
The same thing that allows them to pass right through the earth's radiation belt, magnetic field and ozone layer without interacting with anything also means that they'll pass right through living tissue the same way.
X-rays would be your biggest worry, but the exposure is inconsequential even in this huge burst.
At least that's what the local weather guru said on the 10PM news. Said it should be sometime between 12PM and 2AM CST (GMT -6). Despite having an early meeting with clients tomorrow, I am staying up and a awaiting the show...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I guess it's good that the nuclear power plants of the design in the U.S CAN'T FREAKING CREATE FALLOUT! If you had to hide somewhere from a fire, the inside of a nuclear power plant would be just about the safest place. These things are built to take on hell.
Just because you watched "Atomic Twister" on TBS Superstation doesn't mean that it's true, indicative of ANYTHING about nuclear power plants, or that if a fire got near a nuclear plant that "they could have a Civ2:CallToPower nuclear fall out zone to clean up."
If there's anything that California, and the U.S. in general, needs, it's more nuclear plants. Or perhaps you don't remember the rolling blackouts of 2002 or whenever caused by a lack of power partially due to the fatally flawed, so-called "environmentally friendly" philosophy of California.
But please. Before you start posting about the dangers to something about which you apparently haven't a clue, read up on it instead of basing your obviously limited knowledge from bad sci-fi movies.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
The MODIS Gallery, especially the 10/23 compared to 10/28 really does put things into perspective. It's amazing how big of an impact the fires have caused.
What *I* can't understand is why people think that reference books (even Internet ones) are up to date and provide indebatable evidence or proof. They are at best a snapshot of word meanings by a single author or group. The simple fact is that language constantly changes and sometimes you end up with terms that should be opposites (flammable and inflammable) but actually mean the same thing.
Since you seem interested, I refer you to this periodical or even better, this public radio site and specifically the letter that people send in and the responses. You may or may not like it.
This comment is guaranteed*
*not guaranteed
Well, if there are auroras to be seen this far south we'll never see 'em.
I live in Riverside, CA, just 12 miles south of San Berdoo. We've not seen the sun in going on near a week. It's common to see the sun blotted out for 30 minutes or so at a time when fires happen but to see it gone for days at a time is strange to say the least. Right now, at 11:28pm it looks like a thick fog is moving through but it's smoke. Many of us with respitory problems are misserable to say the least.
It's not worth bitching about though after seeing what's happened in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mnts and much lower than that. You'd need to live here to apreciate just how far the fire has burned. It's gone clear out to La Verne and beyond, two couties away. That's about 26 miles in one line. Worse yet, the fire is just now getting to the edge of a thick forest that has much dry and dead wood due to restricted logging and a very bad bark beetle infestation. I go hiking, camping and mountain biking up there often and over the past few years, and have been doing so for the past 15 years, one can crest any hill and see acres and miles of brown where there was once green.
IMHO, it's environmentalism gone wrong. And now, there's many folks, some of whom I know personaly, out of a house. I've spent much time in the neighborhoods that have burned, These are not even places you'd expect to see get leveled but they have been. They're well out of the mountains and still, they've burned. As I write this I'm brushing bits of ash from my ibook keyboard and I don't even have the windows open. I'm not trying to be dramatic, just telling it as it is from the locals POV.
Odd stuff. I hope it ends fairly soon. I have friends directly afected by this who are now waiting it out in motels or friend and/or relatives places. I hope it all works out for them. BTW, one of the major hiways, I15, has been getting shut down almost daily. Many folks out here live out in the high desert above Cajon pass and commute that thing daily down to the valley for work. It's only about an added 45 minutes/45 miles to their drive but when it kills your work day it sucks. When we get bad snow up in the pass it sometimes gets shut down for part of a day or so but not usually for days at a time. I15 is a major artery between LA, Vegas, and beyond. I hope it all works out. I feel very fortunate I've not been affected other than crappy allergy problems. I really have nothing to bitch about for myself and feel kinda guilty.
Sorry for the rant, just trying to give a local's view of things.
PEACE!
Chuck
And that is why the powers that be at the Burea of Land Management, Department of Interior, etc are starting to allow small to medium sized fires burn so long as the conditions are right to allow them to be contained. We are at the end of a half century plus legacy of bad forest management and we are paying the price, luckily our hindsight is teaching us things that should prevent the same mistakes from being made again. For instance the last two times I have been to the Grand Canyon there have been fires within the park that were allowed to burn, certain roads were closed and certain trails put offlimits, but they were allowed to do their thing so long as the winds didn't pick up too much. The last time I went back I had the inquisitive nature in me kick in and so I hiked to one of the areas that had burned on a previous visit, it was absolutly beautiful, grasses, wildflowers, and small trees growing instead of a dead underbrush like much of the park. Still, you have to feel for the poor saps that are losing their homes due to policies they likely had little to do with creating, and you also have to respect the bravery of the firefighters who try to contain these massive blazes.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well, I just drove out 50 miles east of Anchorage toward Portage Glacier and found a beautiful display of the Aurora Borealis. First it was a bit green, then later on, I had curtains of bright green, purple and red cascading around me. It was fantastic, and it was only 2:30am, the full blown impact hasn't even hit yet... tomorrow night should be nice.
"This is you left and that's your left. This is your right and that's your right. You're gonna die!