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Three More Solar Flares

Evil Adrian writes "Space.com reports that the sun shot off three more solar flares on Monday. This is quite a historic period for solar activity." The article breaks down the recent flares, and what the effects have been. Update: 11/05 01:57 GMT by T : cyberMalex writes "Space.com is reporting the 10th in a string of major solar flares which have been errupting from the sun over the past two weeks. "This one saturated the X-ray detectors on the NOAA's GOES satellites that monitor the Sun. The jury is therefore out on the definitive classification of the flare." "Other scientists have indicated the flare may indeed be an X20 or stronger. Only one X20 event has been seen in recent years, and it was not Earth-directed and had little effect.""

70 of 519 comments (clear)

  1. Nothing really matters. by anaphora · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "I think the last week will go into the history books as one of the most dramatic periods of solar activity we have seen in modern time," Brekke told SPACE.com.

    ...No it wont. Doesn't anyone understand, the general public doesn't CARE about this crap. In 20 years, when people look back at this period in history, they'll see the WTC. Operation: Iraqi Freedom. The video tape of Saddam's fire-ant torture. In 100 years, They'll see the WTC. In 1000 years, they'll see America, and they'll say exactly what we say about the Romans, "Wow, they really owned while they were around. It's too bad they had to fade away." Think about it, can YOU name any war that happened 1000 years ago? How about all the leaders of a country somewhere?

    1. Re:Nothing really matters. by rastakid · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You said it yourself: the general public. But ask anyone interested in astrology in, let's say, 5 years, and they'll probably remember. I do believe solar flares are pretty interesting, but I have to admit, I'm interested in it. And with me, there are many, many others.

    2. Re:Nothing really matters. by The+Man · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I disagree that we're much better at keeping records. The records exist, sure, and often they're stored on the most reliable media we have. You could have said the same thing 1000 years ago as well, and yet despite the abundance of records and the reliability of storage, not enough survived to give a detailed picture of many events. I suspect the same will be true 1000 years from now.

    3. Re:Nothing really matters. by missing000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So, you would argue that we are worse at reccord keeping than we were 2000 years ago?

      I think a comparison to the Dark Ages is a bit silly. Maybe our record keeping sucks, but who has never heard of the Peloponnesian War? (It was 431 BC BTW)

    4. Re:Nothing really matters. by fishbowl · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It wouldn't surprise me if astROLOGISTS put more emphasis on the importantce of solar activity than astronomers do. Scientists do science, but pseudoscientists are at liberty to make any wild conjecture they want to -- and the more obvious the celestial event the more weight they can put on it when they invent their consequences.

      In years to come, today's solar activity will be archives of photos and numbers in observatory logs. But anyone born today will always be able to find someone willing to use the sky as an explanation for their success or failure, who they should pursue as a love interest, what lotto numbers they should pick....

      --
      -fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
    5. Re:Nothing really matters. by missing000 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Consider that the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Rosetta Stone have both existed for ~2000 years. Can you name a single form of media we have today that will last as long?

      1) Go downtown this afternoon (any small town or city will do), and look at the buildings. I bet you will see plenty of carved writing on walls and cornerstones. Some even depicts history!

      2) Many, many volumes of information are currently being preserved in the Library of Congress and elsewhere utilizing anti-aging techniques. I would expect most of these collections to survive for quite a long time.

  2. Aurora Cam by dolo666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the site: Aurora Cam, which "shows the current extent and position of auroral activity in the northern hemisphere, based on measurements taken during the most recent polar pass of the NOAA POES satellite."

    Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy? I mean... is it time for Bruce Willis to suit up again and save the planet? Nine X-class solar flares... eeeek. That has to be bad.

    1. Re:Aurora Cam by JamesD_UK · · Score: 4, Funny

      How about sending Red Adair off to the sun to cool things off a bit?

    2. Re:Aurora Cam by Shakrai · · Score: 2, Funny
      SOLAR PAUSE? Giant sunspots 486 and 488 are about to disappear from view, carried over the western limb of the sun by our star's 27-day rotation. This means Earth-directed explosions will stop... for a while. Big sunspots often persist for many weeks. These two might reappear on the eastern side of the sun in two weeks, the time required for them to transit the far side of the sun.

      Quoted from Spaceweather Perhaps those of us who missed out on the Auroras (BOTH times for me) due to bad weather/timing will get another shot? Think this is still going on in two weeks?

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    3. Re:Aurora Cam by GigsVT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is the sun dying?!

      Does it matter?

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    4. Re:Aurora Cam by zephc · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy?"

      No no, it's a perfectly natural, healthy thing for a star of his age to... want to experiment in self-gratification. You see, a star that age is still learning more about itself, and should be encouraged to do so, in a healthy way. Of course, our star may be doing this a bit too often right now, but it is a novelty that will soon wear off, and once he has become more accustomed to his self, he may do it a lot less. In the meantime, we here on earth must not make our Sun feel ashamed of this, merely support him, and try not to get hit in the face.

      --
      "I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
    5. Re:Aurora Cam by dolo666 · · Score: 2, Funny

      "No no, it's a perfectly natural, healthy thing for a star of his age to... want to experiment in self-gratification."

      Your comparison to solar flares and masturbation made me laugh my ass off! Good job. :)

      I can picture a couple of 1950's parents, and that announcer saying things like, "It's healthy and natural to want to express your sexuality, Sun, but please do it in your own private area, not where the WHOLE WORLD can see..."

    6. Re:Aurora Cam by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Funny
      It might be something to worry about when we have the means of evacuating the solar system, or at least the planet. Even if someone knows the sun is going to explode in a week, is there any reason for us to worry? We can't do anything to stop it nor can we save ourselves, so why worry?

      No, we need to know about it so we can all eat, drink, and be merry in the time that we have left.... then all feel really stupid (not to mention owe apologies to that girl in the cubical down the hall) when nothing happens ;) Y2K anyone?

      --
      I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
      We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
    7. Re:Aurora Cam by lonesome+phreak · · Score: 3, Funny

      I was listening to NPR about something like this, but it was a person worrying about a giant planet-killer. My opinion was "so?". I've got other things to worry about than solar flares or planet-killers. It's not like I could get away anyway.

      --
      Maybe we DID take the blue pill. You wouldn't remember anyway.
    8. Re:Aurora Cam by squiggleslash · · Score: 2, Funny
      Look, ok, you're right. It is worth worrying about. So, here's what I did. I just checked into it, did a few measurements, looked at the historical record, and basically we're in the clear.

      Let me know if there's anything else I can reassure you about,

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    9. Re:Aurora Cam by timeOday · · Score: 3, Funny
      It was unprecedented to have a large flare on an off year. It was unprecedented to have a second one. And now it's unprecedented to have a whole flurry of them within a week.
      Well, it certainly puts to shame those naysayers who continue to insist that this is all just a natural phenomenon of some sort; that man is not to blame. You know the type, driving their SUVs to work at the coal factory. How many more "coincidences" will it take to convince them?!
  3. Biblical by GaelenBurns · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wish I had my Revelations better memorized.

    1. Re:Biblical by mr_z_beeblebrox · · Score: 5, Funny

      I wish I had my Revelations better memorized.

      "And the horsemen spoke "Behold 9 solar prominences" And the Earth was smited by an X15.

    2. Re:Biblical by The+Fun+Guy · · Score: 2, Funny

      So do I. The book in the Bible is "Revelation", not "Revelations". God will know his own, pal.

      --
      The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
    3. Re:Biblical by Theatetus · · Score: 5, Informative

      First off: why?

      Secondly, it's Revelation or if you prefer Apocalypse (which is just Greek for "Revelation"). Books back then didn't have titles, and this one simply comes from the first word of the book.

      Thirdly, it's a very thinly-disguised mid-2nd-century political invective about the fall of Rome and Judaism and the establishment of a Christian hegemony in eastern Europe and western Asia, not the end of the world.

      Fourthly, in most modern Christian's minds it has been hopelessly confused with Daniel and John's letters (for example, most people you ask will tell you that Revelation mentions the Anti-Christ; it does not. The only biblical references to "antichrist" are in John's letters, and it's "antichrists" not "The Antichrist").

      Fifthly, the reference to the sun in Revelation is:

      "I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth" (Rev. 6:12)
      which is the exact opposite of what the sun is doing right now.

      Sixthly and lastly, memorizing books about imaginary tribal deities strikes me as an immense waste of time, but if it works for you, more power to you.

      --
      All's true that is mistrusted
  4. it.. by xao+gypsie · · Score: 3, Funny

    it appears that i was right the first time. Shamash, the mesopotamian sun god is really angry. run to your ziggurats all ye heathen, and make your sacrifices it is too late and we are decimated under his awesome power!!!
    (for a niminal fee, i will be willing to act as priest...)

    xao

    --


    xao
    http://TheHillforum.hopto.org
  5. makes you wonder... by mantera · · Score: 2, Funny

    whether environmentalist might just claim this is due to global warming; i won't be surprised if they do!!!

    1. Re:makes you wonder... by mgs1000 · · Score: 2, Funny

      If we had only ratified Kyoto!

  6. From the article by UrgleHoth · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Sun cut loose with three severe flares in less than 24 hours through Monday morning

    cut loose? Is thr journalist trying to make a gastrointestinal metaphor here?

    --

    Dogma - "let's just say we'd like to avoid any empirical entanglements."
  7. Historic Period? by Grip3n · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Historic period in solar flares? Sorry, I might not be all that caught up on my solar flare monitoring, but how long have we been doing that exactly? It can't be more than in the last 50 years and considering the age of the subject in question, that's not even a drop in the bucket - its an atom in the bucket. Who knows? Perhaps this is a little more regular than we originally thought. We just started getting into this. I know if I had as much gas as the Sun I'd be doing a whole lot of belching too.

    --
    To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
    1. Re:Historic Period? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Scientists have been using beryllium content in icebergs to trace the general prominence of sunspots and their activity over the last 1150 years. This activity exceeds any on that record as well.

    2. Re:Historic Period? by JamesD_UK · · Score: 2

      Since 1976, see here.

    3. Re:Historic Period? by skarmor · · Score: 4, Informative

      Sorry, I might not be all that caught up on my solar flare monitoring, but how long have we been doing that exactly?

      Richard Christopher Carrington published his Observation of the Spots of the Sun in 1863. He was observing a group of sun spots when, "...two patches of intensely bright and white light broke out."

      His description:

      "I saw I was an unprepared witness of a very different affair. I therefore noted down the time by the chronometer, and seeing the outburst to be very rapidly on the increase, and being somewhat flurried by the surprise, I hastily ran to call some one to witness the exhibition with me, and on returning within 60 seconds, was mortified to find that it was already much changed and enfeebled. Very shortly afterwards the last trace was gone. In this lapse of 5 minutes, the two patches of light traversed a space of about 35,000 miles."

      So I guess we've been monitoring solar flares for some 140 years...

    4. Re:Historic Period? by Gulthek · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We have samples from icebergs measuring beryllium-10, which give us a good picture of solar activity for the past couple thousand years or so.

      Aside from that, it's a historic period in solar flares simply because we haven't seen it happen before. Just because we don't know how common this occurence is in the full grand scheme of things, doesn't mean that it isn't noteworthy when we see it for the first time!

    5. Re:Historic Period? by droovee · · Score: 2, Informative
      Not entirely true. The CBC has an article today. A choice quote:
      Direct observations of sunspots go back to the early 17th century, corresponding to the invention of the telescope.
      To get data on sunspots from before observations were possible, Ilya Usoskin, a geophysicist who worked with colleagues at the University of Oulu in Finland and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, examined ice core samples from Greenland and Antarctica.
    6. Re:Historic Period? by pclminion · · Score: 3, Informative
      Well, considering that the word "historic" means "within the realm of written records," then yes, this is the biggest event that has been recorded in writing. There's a reason we call the dinosaurs (as an example) "prehistoric" and not "historic." They came BEFORE written history. Since these flares are the largest recorded in written history, the term "historic" is apt.

      So yes, the Sun has most likely had numerous PREhistoric solar flare events of this magnitude. But none in recorded history. It's a historic event.

      Sincerely,
      Your local anal-retentive

    7. Re:Historic Period? by kevlar · · Score: 4, Informative

      Whats even more interesting is that there are fairly solid theories that solar flare activity is directly related to the mean global temperature. In other words, the green house effect may very well be *mostly* caused by the Sun, rather than CO2 in the atmosphere.

    8. Re:Historic Period? by Bytesmiths · · Score: 2, Informative
      "Historic period in solar flares? Sorry, I might not be all that caught up on my solar flare monitoring, but how long have we been doing that exactly? It can't be more than in the last 50 years..."

      That's what "history" means -- as long as humans have been keeping track. Otherwise, it's known as "prehistoric," as in dinosaurs and cave men.

    9. Re:Historic Period? by TGK · · Score: 4, Insightful

      For the record, most environmentalists are less worried about the planet and more worried about you.

      No one has any doubts that if human kind makes the biggest mess we can of this ball of mud that life will go on. The industrial companies are right, human kind is small change in the cycles of global climate.

      Of course, when you're small change it doesn't take a whole hell of a lot to exterminate you and most everything like you.

      No one thinks we're gonna wreck the planet, but aside from Al Gore, most of us wouldn't want to see Florida under water.

      Humankind probably won't make any major changes in the global scheme of things, but the minor changes we make could cause untold havoc, suffering, and chaos... at least on the human scale.

      So yes... the Sun might be the major cause of global warming.... in much the same way that your heater is the major thing that heats your house.

      Does this mean it's a good idea to set the drapes on fire?

      --
      Killfile(TGK)
      No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
  8. 3 flares in 24 hours, BAH! by gasgesgos · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the article:The Sun cut loose with three severe flares in less than 24 hours


    That's nothing special, I've cut loose with three severe flares in one hour before!

    Although I didn't cause pretty lights in the sky, I just cleared the room :(

  9. It's not the # of flares .. it's by jaxdahl · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's the size of these flares that's unusual. Never have astronomers seen 2 Jupiter sized sunspots tranversing the sun at the same time. The number of sunspots is about normal for this time in the 11 year solar cycle. Here's a nice summary page: http://www.n3kl.org/sun/noaa.html

    1. Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's by JamesD_UK · · Score: 4, Informative

      This page from Nasa's Astronomy Picture of the day site shows some amazing images of these sun spots.

    2. Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's by Acidic_Diarrhea · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yes, they're larger than everything we've previously observed but given our incredibly limited amount of data and the fact that the sun has been around for quite some time, we don't know whether or not it is unusual. It could be unusual or there could be a much longer cycle that we are completely unaware of due to our limited vision.

      --
      I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
    3. Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's by jafuser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      The first of the three was a Class X8 flare.

      Considering the sun nearly punched through to the next magnitude class, I wonder if it's even got a label?

      I only see classes A, B, C, M, and X in the graph on spaceweather.com. If this keeps up we might need a label for the next order of magnitude.

      --
      Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
    4. Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's by barakn · · Score: 2, Insightful
      The number of sunspots is about normal for this time in the 11 year solar cycle

      No. Here's the monthly averaged daily SSNs and here's the last six daily SSNs (scroll a third of the way down to see 'em). The daily SS numbers for the six day period ending on Oct. 28 were 122, 160, 139, 191, 238, and 230. The number dropped to 76 today, which is roughly normal this late in the cycle, but that's because the huge spots are rotating out of view (not to worry, they'll be back in 2 weeks). Once the monthly averages are updated, we'll see that this solar cycle has a peculiar third peak (and even a second peak is somewhat unusual).

      --
      "I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
    5. Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      While we've never seen two Jupiter size sun spots before, doesn't mean it has not happened. Remember, before a few years ago, we did not have the instrumentation that we do now in observing the sun.

      M42gal AKA St.

  10. The most activity in 1150 years by Bendebecker · · Score: 3, Informative

    Another good article about this here.

    --
    There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
    most of us won't be able to afford it.
    -- Lemmy
  11. Guilt-free fun by Malor · · Score: 3, Insightful

    One thing that I'm really enjoying about the solar flares, unlike most Earthly climate events, is that we can be absolutely certain we didn't cause it via pollution or global warming or what have you. When I see the hurricanes and tornadoes and big wildfires, there's always this nagging worry in the back of my mind that it might not be happening if we weren't spitting out all the pollution.

    But we have no effect whatsoever on the Sun, so I can sit back and watch the show guilt-free. :-)

  12. Lets slashdot the Sun by G4from128k · · Score: 2, Funny

    I suggest that nerds everywhere strip off their clothes and go outside. The resulting flare of brightness should knock those coronal mass ejections away from the Earth.

    Either we do that or we cover the planet in SPF 45 lotion.

    --
    Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
  13. Historic Period? by pizen · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is quite a historic period for solar activity.

    How so? The Sun has been around a lot longer than we've been monitoring it. This could be nothing in the Sun's history.

  14. Re:Guilt-/*&?%*?/ by sreid · · Score: 2, Funny

    does it affect affect &?*?23% web (_*&_(&*

  15. Re:I wonder why by JayPee · · Score: 2, Funny

    No shit.. it's a big thermonuclear device which is showering us with deadly radiation.

    WMD!! In space!! GOD HELP US!

  16. Got Sol? by dukeluke · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, I must say that I'm slightly more interested in the solar activities of recent due to my Astronomy class at college.

    This is a very interesting time for the scientist within each of us - we can see first hand the importance of Earth's magnetic field - as well as the cause/effect of the solar flare upon our power plants, satellite dishes, and yes - our Astronaut up in the International Space Station.

  17. aurora by Rumagent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I always find it fascinating, when the universe demonstrates just how small and insignificant we really are... that, and watching aurora is a great way of getting kids interested in astronomy.

  18. Bennifer by HarveyBirdman · · Score: 5, Funny
    What did we have to sacrifice to prevent this again?? i can't read mayan..

    Oddly enough, we have to sacrifice Ben and JLo.

    The Mayan line in question is "Big head, snake, rock shaped thing, potato with teeth, something that looks like a broken Trane air conditioning unit, something with three legs and four ears, a bigger potato with teeth and breasts, Jabba The Hut, another big head, a pile of little tiny heads, a medium sized head with a smaller head next to it, an aborted fetus someone inflated with an air pump."

    The rough translation is "annoying couple (in unity) with mighty hair and (ass) who commit crime of that (terrible) Gigli."

    Yes, there's a heiroglyph for "Gigli".

    Hey, they were WAY ahead of their time.

    Related Link

    --
    --- Ban humanity.
  19. Anyone see anything? by Otter · · Score: 2
    What's up with the Northern Lights we've been promised? I'd love to see them without an expensive trip to freeze my ass off in Nunavut but haven't seen any useful information on when and where to look.

    Anyone seen them after these recent storms? Is there a good site for information?

    1. Re:Anyone see anything? by FrostedWheat · · Score: 4, Informative

      Here you go:

      http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html

      That shows the current aurora activity for both poles. Click on the one nearest to you and wait until there's some activity near you :)

      Even if the activity looks quite far from you, check anyway. We had lots of aurora visable here even tho the map showed it about a hundred miles away.

    2. Re:Anyone see anything? by Bob(TM) · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's the Auroral Activity Map from the Space Environment Center.

      At least one of the recent geomagnetic events began just after dawn where I live, so that chance was pretty much shot. Others were overcast or inconvenient (check out the GOES magnetometer for times when the magnetic field was disturbed)

      It helps to be in a really dark area - light pollution in a city will just about kill any chance of seeing it. The only time I ever saw it (the '89 geomagnetic storm event), I went out specifically determined to try and catch a glipmse (I was watching the data pretty closely). I drove 30 minutes away from the nearest city lightsource and waited in the dark about two hours total (two shifts). I was just about to call it quits (it was after midnight) and it appeared suddenly. Ten minutes later, it was gone.

      --

      The little guy just ain't getting it, is he?
    3. Re:Anyone see anything? by lotho+brandybuck · · Score: 2, Interesting

      We saw the Aurora in Portland, Oregon Tuesday night last week. Very beautiful.. worth a little
      temporary ass-freezing-off.

      We got pictures, I posted them .

      A great site for information is at [Solar Terrestrial Dispatch]
      they also have a photo gallery.

      The sun rotates every 27 days.. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next month. I'd hate to own a satellite right about now.

    4. Re:Anyone see anything? by jafuser · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's a picture of aurora on spaceweather.com taken by someone in Orlando, Florida. In addition, I saw an aurora during the previous cycle about a hundred miles south of Orlando. It was mostly just a reddish haze that slowly changed in intensity, but it was reported the next day as a rare aurora event.

      I'm even further south now, so I obviously don't watch for them much. Perhaps I may keep a closer eye on the spaceweather site to see if I can catch one again =)

      --
      Please consider making an automatic monthly recurring donation to the EFF
  20. Almost by Brown · · Score: 2, Interesting

    In fact, the battle of Hastings was between the Normans (from Normandy in France, though of Norse - 'viking' - ancestry), and the English Anglo-Saxons.

    The Anglo-Saxons were Germanic peoples who colonised England after the departure of the Roman legions (though they had been raiding previously). It appears the celtic britons integrated with them (as slaves/lower-caste), and some norse got mixed in as well (the Danes ruled much of England not long before, and there'd been several danish Kings of England 50-odd years previously).

    The name 'England' comes from one of the main Germanic peoples who colonised England during the 'dark ages' after Rome, the Angles - the other main ones being the Saxons and the Jutes.

    All in all, Western European history of the times got kindof complicated - which as very little to do with sunspots of course...

  21. Nice Headline by Captain+McCrank · · Score: 4, Funny
    Sun on Fire, Unleashes 3 More Major Flares

    Scott McNealy is such a fucking loose cannon. When will his handlers reign in his hockey-rage?

    FOR THE SAKE OF THE CHILDREN, PLEASE STOP SCOTT!

  22. When is Bush going by praedor · · Score: 2, Funny

    to pull his head out and finally declare the Sun a terrorist? We should be lobbing bombs back at the Sun for firing on us not just once, but 3 or 4 times! Direct shots, no glancing blows. This obvious aggression against the US cannot be tolerated anymore.


    Nuke the Sun!

    hh
    --
    In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
  23. Re:Peloponnesian war by Trolling4Dollars · · Score: 2, Funny
    ...or the invasion of the Goths...

    Dood... get your history straight. The goths didn't come about until the 1980s when Siouxie and the Banshees invaded. ;P

  24. Re:I wonder why by DogIsMyCoprocessor · · Score: 4, Funny

    Bush - "The more solar flares are shot at us, the more it shows the desperation of the Sun."

    --

    "And this is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello." "Good boy."

  25. Re:I wonder why by pclminion · · Score: 3, Funny
    I was once in a university class called "Alpine Environments" in which we studied, well, the obvious. There was a student in class who seemed quite literally to be on acid at all times. He was barely comprehensible when he spoke, rocked back and forth in his seat constantly, and was generally pretty creepy.

    One day in the class the professor says "Now, at elevations above 9000 feet it is extremely important to wear sunblock, since the ultraviolet radiation from the sun is much stronger where the air is thinner."

    This guy shoots his hand up with a crazed look on his face and screams: "My God, are you saying there's RADIATION coming from the SUN?!" It took about five minutes of soothing, but he finally calmed back down and seemed to accept the fact that light, indeed, is radiation.

    So don't laugh too hard. Some people might well be stupid enough to take your joke literally.

  26. Solar Observations by evilpenguin · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm no solar scientist, but I don't think it is even remotely reasonable for anyone to say anything about the sun is "unprecedented." The percentage of the sun's life that human beings have been observing has to be less than 0.01%

    Maybe everything we've seen up to now has been atypical and this represents a return to the norm.

    1. Re:Solar Observations by Jerf · · Score: 2, Informative

      Why pull a number out of your ass when you can pull a number off of the back of an envelope? ;-)

      10,000 years of the human race / 10,000,000,000 years of the sun existing =~ .0001% .

      I pulled the sun's age from memory and where you draw the line for "the human race" is somewhat a matter of choice, but it should be within a magnitude and a half, which is all that matters here.

      Gets even worse if you want to talk about humans really observing the sun and not merely looking at it; guesstimate 100 years and drop another two factors of magnitude off that number for .000001% of the sun's life.

  27. Arnold Schwarzenegger? by Omega · · Score: 4, Funny

    Doesn't anyone else see the correlation between Arnold Schwarzenegger becoming governor of California, the Yankees losing the World Series to the Florida Marlins and the repeated solar flares? I'm counting at least 3 horsemen of the apocalypse here.

    1. Re:Arnold Schwarzenegger? by Lord_Slepnir · · Score: 4, Funny

      We still need Microsoft Linux, so we'll be safe for a while.

  28. How quickly we forget by Syncdata · · Score: 3, Funny

    That the apocalypse was narrowly averted in the National league and American leage championship series.
    If Boston or chicago had won, I might be donning my tinfoil hat, but as it is, no worries.

    --
    "Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
  29. Saw one in RI last thursday by overunderunderdone · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I saw one in Rhode Island last thursday night around 7:00. It was very dim and at first I just thought it was light pollution I always notice from the town north of me. But after a while it became more distinct and had that characteristic aurora shimmering and shifting. It was still so dim that I was half convinced it was only my over active imagination until a friend called to tell me to go out an look at it.

  30. Rotate Right operation by autophile · · Score: 2, Funny
    From the article: Both sunspots are about to rotate off the right side of the Sun's face...

    ...where they will first fill the carry bit, then reappear on the most significant side, or left side, of the Sun's face...

    --
    Towards the Singularity.
  31. Here comes ANOTHER one... by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 2, Funny

    Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy? I mean... is it time for Bruce Willis to suit up again and save the planet? Nine X-class solar flares... eeeek. That has to be bad.

    Don't know about bad. But there was another one - a REALLY big one - about 1930 GMT / 11:30 PST / 2:30 EST. See this page for the X-ray intensity at the GEOS satellites - at least until it horizons out in a few more hours.

    Note that the peak is beyond the saturation of the instrument. BIG.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
  32. Also today: by sharkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Seemingly, there is no reason for these extraordinary, intergalactical upsets. Only Dr. Hans Zarkov, formerly of NASA, has provided any explanation.

    This Mondays unprecedented solar flares are no cause for alarm.

    --

    --
    "Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.