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Sunspot Grows to 20 Times Size of Earth

Posted by michael on from the tan-don't-burn dept.

TheHedgehog writes "A sunspot group aimed squarely at Earth has grown to 20 times the size of our planet and has the potential to unleash a major solar storm. 'The implications of this spot have scientists on the edge of their seats,' NASA said in a statement Friday. 'If the active region generates coronal mass ejections (CMEs), massive explosions with a potential force of a billion megaton bombs, it will be a fairly direct hit to Earth and its satellites and power grids.'"

5 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. National Geographic sun issue by whoda · · Score: 4, Informative

    The July 2004 issue of National Geographic had a large article about the sun and how we've come to understand how it works.

    It was a fascinating read in the print magazine. I'm not 100% sure that the online article is 100% of the printed article.

    Did you know that the radiation that eventually becomes visible light takes 100,000 years to escape from the center of the sun to the corona, due to how dense matter is packed in the middle?
    From there it's only 8 minutes to earth.

    The corona of the sun itself is hundreds of times hotter than the surface of the sun.

    National Geographic sun article

  2. Panic over, come out of your tinfoil shelters by steve.m · · Score: 4, Informative

    It was a big, scary sunspot on July 23rd. SpaceWeather.com are currently reporting: Sunspot 652 is decaying, but it still has a "beta-gamma-delta" magnetic field that harbors energy for X-class solar flares. And it's not pointing at Earth anymore, it's on the right limb of the Sun.

  3. Re:Over-excited reports by wayne606 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Quite a few things have happened due to solar flares. Satellites knocked out, transmission lines shut down, etc. Check out "Storms from the Sun: The Emerging Science of Space Weather" by Michael Carlowicz and Ramon Lopez - I read this a while back and it listed a number of these consequences.

  4. Updated Space Weather information by isn't+my+name · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, it's not bigger then the X17 event last October.

    Remember, you can always get up to date information from NOAA's space weather site, including the page that has updated X-Ray images of the sun, auroral maps, and measurements of the magnetic field among other things.

  5. Re:Worst case scenario??? by black+mariah · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some satellites go "WTF?" for a while.

    --
    'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.