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NASA Notices New, Nasty Solar Storm Type
saskboy writes "Solar Storms generally aren't this bad, but in January unique conditions led to a "proton superhighway" that bombarded earth with fast moving protons that could have harmed astronauts caught without a radiation shield.
"Scant minutes after the January 20th [2005] flare, a swarm of high-speed protons surrounded Earth and the Moon. Thirty minutes later, the most intense proton storm in decades was underway."
Listen to the story here.
Archives from the January storms are also available from SpaceWeather.com"
You mean we had the opportunity for a new generation of super-heros due to radiation bombardment and we totally missed it? In the age of manned private space flight, I'm disappointed.
The protons...they just kept...swarming and surrounding me...The protons!....The horror! Babies were screaming! Children were crying! Animals were being slaughtered! THE PROTOOOOONNNSS!!!.. -shudders-
nothing.can.stop.me.now
When the Fantastic Four come out in July, we will see the dangers of being out in space without a radiation shield.
This is just another sign of mankind's effect on the solar system. We need to stop polluting outer space, or we can count on rapid climate change and other phenomena that will destroy life in our solar system.
I heard that 5 people aboard the ISS got caught in it. One guy's skin got all orange and hard, but his muscles got MAJORLY enhanced. One guy got increased flexibility, tothe point that he could bend and extend his bones/muscles as much as he wanted. Another guy was affected so much he could start fires on the outside of his body. An unfortunate woman caught in this stream turned invisible. However, the worst one was a guy who suffered a severe personality loss. He was said to be just plain mean and nasty. And his nerves for some reason discharged electrical shocks many times their normal size.
I think it was supposed to be a parody on zealous people claiming humanity is affecting the environment, but the parent poster doesn't agree with this and rather think they're poorly informed or educated in how the environment works. Well, it's the only way I can make it make sense to me at least.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
"Err. Wait. Sorry this is slashdot, I guess large muscley women won't have much of an effect on us, other than having large muscley mothers."
That won't affect us? Now they can kick us out of the basement.
--
A sig should be wise.
I don't preview or spellcheck.
...you're saying that trolling is caused by proton storms?
It was a bit over the top humor, but it makes a point. Look at almost every slashdot thread. Someone invariably tries to tie in either a nefarious, sinister plot. Not every event that affects us is caused by a) George Bush b) Republicans c) Greenpeace d) Democrates e) Global Warming e) Political Payoffs f) Fox Network
Sometimes we need to be reminded of this, and while the post wasn't of the caliber of Swift's "A Modest Proposal", it tried to get a point across.
Let it be.
Everytime something like this happens there are unusual weather patterns later on in the season, and then people scream bloody murder that it is global warming and demand immediate and overwhelming regulations be put in place right now.
I'm writing this for the record because I just know I'm gonna here this a few months down the road.
The article expains how lousy amateur radio propagation in the HF bands can occur when www.spaceweather.com or WWV says that something unpredicted is happening and they are caught off guard. Its rather amazing. Thats why its important to sign up for their telephone call and email alert service. Rob N3FT
I know you're joking, but it's only a matter of time before someone "blames" this on cassini or other "nukes-in-space" projects.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It would be really cool to be able to have data from the entire Solar surface instead of our currently limited view. It would also be handy to know if a solar storm was brewing on another part of the Sun and was likely to let loose when that portion of the Sun rotated to face Earth.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I thought this was pretty interesting, here's a picture on January 20th, then another picture from February 20th.
You do know that SOHO is already happily orbiting L1? Obviously, from L1 it has an unobstructed view of the sun all the time. Additionally, this gives us almost 180 degrees of coverage - not quite as good at the rim, but coverage none the less.
The problem is, that although you can place satellites there, getting data from some of these places is a big problem, because you have to schedule antenna time through the deep space network.
Currently, there's the ESA-NASA project SOHO, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which sits near L1. You can't actually place it directly in the sun-earth line, because then you can't communicate with the satellite, because of too much noise from the sun.
Currently in testing are the two observatories called STEREO, the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, which will launch two satellites flung ahead and behind the earth (but because of the physics involved, they have no way of stopping them, because they won't have enough fuel to stop.
(and there's also the Japanese Solar-B project, which is the successor to Yohkoh, set for launch next year)
But in my opinion, the most significant solar observing satellite in planning is SDO, the Solar Dynamics Observatory. (and I say this purely from an IT standpoint) SDO will be at an inclined geosyncronous orbit -- so it will be able to talk to a single antenna the whole time -- rather than storing up its data, and then sending it down to earth once a day, it will be sending a constant stream of full resolution data.
And we're not talking about the 1megapixel images from SOHO/EIT or SOHO/TRACE instruments -- or even the 4megapixel from STEREO/SECCHI. We're talking about 16 megapixel images, every 10 seconds from one of the instruments, with a planned terrabyte of uncompressed data per day.
Oh -- and I work for NASA contractor, and am assigned to work on STEREO and VSO (the Virtual Solar Observatory, a search engine for solar physics data).
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
How in the heck did that get moderated Insightful?
Even if the climate changes this year aren't completely attributed to human produced pollutants in our atmosphere, the solar storms are NOT a reason to scale back efforts to clean up industries that have been way too dirty for way too long.
There are benefits to enacting immediate changes and regulations that do more than just ensure we aren't cooking our country with green house gasses. We can also reap economic benefits of saving energy, having fewer health problems, and reducing dependance on Saudi Oil [which is a major factor in thousands of American troops dying overseas these past years].
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
NOAA maintains a list of 'Solar Proton Events'. My boss maintains a copy of the data, which has an extra footnote:So, the CME (believed to be) associated with it occured about 3 hrs before GOES got hit by it.
Images and movies of the event, as seen by LASCO, are at:
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.