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Sun Releases Largest Radiation Storm in 15 Years

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

what_the_frell writes "Newscientist is reporting that a large cluster of sunspots has just released huge amounts of radiation toward Earth. The crew of the ISS reportedly had to move into the bulkier Russian section of the station, while airlines rerouted planes away from the most affected regions. Look forward to varying degrees of radio & cell phone reception and some pretty cool aurora boreali until January 22, when the sunspot storm turns away from the earth, pointing its radiation elsewhere."

6 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. Ahem... by NonSequor · · Score: 4, Informative

    The plural of aurora borealis would be aurorae boreales.

    --
    My only political goal is to see to it that no political party achieves its goals.
  2. Sweet... by MonMotha · · Score: 2, Informative

    And there's the ARRL VHF sweepstakes this weekend. Should certainly be fun. 6m was open tonight (was hearing Florida in Indiana), but things may change over the weekend.

    I'm not very familiar with VHF/UHF propagation modes. Anyone have any hints on what this may do to propagation on the VHF and up bands?

    1. Re:Sweet... by js7a · · Score: 3, Informative

      Lots of noise with occasional increases in reflectivity, but often at multiple altitudes. Sometimes auroral propagation on VHF is really sigificant, but don't count on it.

  3. Re:Aurorae Boreales vs Aurora Borealesees by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 2, Informative

    1) Aurora borealises is inconvenient because of a double "s" sound. Besides, the general rule for "cactuses" instead of "cacti" and so forth is different species of cactuses. This is the same aurora, just several of them.

    2) Majors general is because major is the noun. The French plural would be majors generaux. Also, we've come to assume that "major" is the adjective and "general" is the noun, when apparently the reverse is true.

    3) In most Romance languages, including Latin, you do indeed say the literal translation of "northerns lights" or "lights northerns." English is an exception. If we pluralize it according to Latin rules, we'd have to make both plural. Besides, Aurorae borealis and aurora boreales are both awkward, although I doubt that's what you mean.

    4) We still say bacteria instead of bacteriums, right? I'm sure we'd still keep the French plural if we understood it was French and called it a "mah-JOR jey-ney-RAHL."

  4. Re:Great by M1FCJ · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sun rotates around itself in 25 days plus a couple of hours. Look at the Sun entry at Wikipedia. Don't bother me.

  5. Gravity Probe B affected as well. by DerekLyons · · Score: 2, Informative

    Gravity Probe B (previously discussed on Slashdot here and here.) was also affected according to their latest bulletin.